Middle of Nowhere
by Weasy
Summary: AU, all human. When Buffy and Faith's thieving ways get them in trouble in LA they're forced to hide in Sunnydale, only to find they're not the only people with less than legitimate money making methods… COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**Middle Of Nowhere**  
By Weasy  
**Rating:** R, mostly for language, some violence and minor adult situations.  
**Summary:** AU, all human. When Buffy and Faith's thieving ways get them in trouble in LA they're forced to hide in Sunnydale, only to find they're not the only people with less than legitimate money making methods…  
**Pairings:** Buffy/Angel, Faith/Lindsey

This story was written for the CyA ficathon, I'll post the challenge I recieved at the end of all the parts. Many, many thanks to my lovely abbagura who I had to ring up and ask to do my beta job, dragging her away from the much beloved footie, to correct all my spelling and tell me off for making up words...

By the way - I don't know who it was that gave me this challenge but I want to say that first of all I thought it was uber-evil and couldn't think of anything to write, and by the end of... definately the best challenge I've ever had. So much fun.

**Prologue**

Los Angeles, California  
Eight Years Before The Auction

_Buffy took an elicit drag of the stolen cigarette, thrilling as the smoke powered into her sixteen year old lungs. For a moment she thought of those gross-as-hell tarred up lungs they had hanging in the biology lab at school, but she dismissed them just as quickly as their image had appeared in her mind. You had to smoke shit-loads to get lungs like that and Buffy knew she could quit anytime she wanted._

"Hey, sis!"

Buffy peered through the smoke at her twin sister making her way through the gymnasium toward her, Faith and Buffy were in almost everyway physically dissimilar. Faith was full of dark features and even now had far more chest than Buffy was every going to achieve, Buffy was blonde and blue eyed. In fact, the only thing the two really had in common - as their principal liked to remind them - was that they were way more trouble than they were worth. 

The boys had arrived with Faith. Pike walked close to Faith's side, visibly checking Buffy out even as he slung his arm around Faith's shoulders. On her sister's other side Rodney had somehow bagged an invitation and was skulking along with a slightly worrying smile on his face. Whatever, Buffy ignored him; she didn't even know why that kid hung out with them anyhow.

"What'd you get?" Buffy called back and obligingly Faith started rooting round in her shoulder bag. They'd all reached the stadium seats that Buffy was sitting on, and they sat around a few steps below her so that they had to crane their necks to look up at her. Buffy smirked at the image – it looked like they were her royal suitors or something.

Faith had finally found her treasure and she flashed the red label under Buffy's nose before stealing it back to take a long sip. "Score!" Rodney yelled, "Smirnoff vodka!"

"Oh yeah," Pike leered, looking up at Buffy in an entirely indecent way. "Only the best for my girls."

Buffy shot him back a seductive glance of her own and took another drag from the white stick between her fingers.

"You got smokes?" Rodney asked impatiently and Buffy chucked him the packet to shut him up, amused she watched as he fumbled trying to get one lit.

Faith raised one eyebrow. "That all you got?"

"No way." Buffy delighted in making them wait to find out what it was she had bagged for their little impromptu get together in the gym. "I got some green from Jay."

"Oh man!" Pike slapped her hand, "you pay?"

Buffy grinned deliciously. "Nope, took it right out from his locker when he was making out with Janae."

"We gunna get started then or what?" Faith shot back impatiently

"Not yet," Pike frowned, "you're always in such a hurry to get to the goods."

Faith just rolled her eyes, "like you don't love it."

"I didn't say I didn't. All I want to know is, what did Rod bring to merit his invitation to this party?"

Rodney jumped up excited, "you'll see, it's great! Cost me a fortune." He bragged, shouldering his bag he set off for the middle of the basketball court and with his back to his audience started setting up.

Expertly measuring out an eighth by rote, Pike joked with Faith and Buffy as they made up their joints, twisting and shuffling the paper packets of beautiful drug-induced annihilation. In a matter of moments the first toke was lit and passed around, the bittersweet smell of the burning leaves clouding around the three of them.

"Guys!" Rodney was dancing around in front of them. "See!"

In the centre of the room a foot long stick had been anchored between some loose floorboards, sparks flew from one end, travelling up the cable like fuse far too fast for comfort.

"Oh fuck!" Pike was on his feet, moving painfully slowly under the cannabis cloud that flew around them. "Rodney you fucking retard!"

Frowning, Rodney backed away from them and hurried toward the firework. "Sorry… I'll just turn it out, I just thought it'd be cool, you know?" 

"No!" All three of them were yelling at him, a string of curses and insults and please-god-Rodney-no's, but it was way too late.

**Los Angeles, California  
Three Years Before The Auction**

Buffy spun the cocktail stick around the inside of her martini, pushing the olive round in ever more hypnotic circles. Over the sugared rim of the glass she could see Wes peeking at her as covertly as he could in the shadows of the sleek dark bar at The Black Rose. Probably wondering if she was ever going to have a little of the drink he'd placed in front of her as soon as she sat down. But then, he had a vested interest in her fitting in despite the fake ID nestled in her purse, or more honestly, because of it. It'd been Buffy that Wesley had come to when he needed his own similarly fake ID and working permit. He needed to leave LA, and to leave first he had to be able to work, to work he had to be able to stay. Buffy smiled into the colourless liquid. It was the way of her world. And she had no objection to that.

A man was hovering at her left, half-heartedly pretending to be trying to get the bartenders attention he brushed against her limbs and she let him bodily direct her arm straight into her top heavy cocktail glass that promptly spilled it's contents over the bar.

Wesley was helping them in an instant, wiping a soaked cloth over the spill while the man apologised profusely. He was fairly attractive, tall with closely cropped hair and dark skin, but the regulation boots sticking out from under his jeans screamed 'Marine' and as far as Buffy was concerned anyone in the armed forces just wasn't worth the trouble. Marine-man was trying to subtly perve down her top as he leaned across to help Wesley mop up the mess.

"It's no trouble." Buffy smiled politely and slipped down from her bar stool, marine-man caught her arm.

"Wait, let me at least buy you a drink-"

"I'm sorry, but I'm really not into swinging."

He dropped her arm abruptly, mouth hanging open. "U-uh, sorry. I didn't realise you were married, ma'am."

"It's fine." Buffy smiled wryly and turned away. And she didn't really mind, he was cute enough and while it had been a shame that she couldn't take his wallet, the thought of his retroactive search to find the cell phone that had been sticking out of his back pocket kept her quietly amused. She glanced around the bar looking for somewhere inconspicuous to sit and find another mark. She'd just about settled on a sullen looking cowboy huddled in a dark booth and knocking back beer like it was holy water when a petite pale skinned and dark-featured girl sauntered in with half a dozen guys drooling in her wake. Buffy resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. Her sister had absolutely no concept of subtlety. In the short term, it made her a hell of a lot more cash than Buffy but in the long term… what Faith wanted she took, and consequently the law held the same opinion about her.

Still, they'd managed to stay out of trouble so far.

She'd totally just jinxed that.

Faith caught her eye and dismissed her followers, blatantly leafing through one skinny geek's wallet while he watched her with absolute adoration, she took a couple of hundred, gave him a good look at her cleavage as she kissed him on the cheek and headed in Buffy's direction. Although, Buffy considered, Faith always seemed to give the guys she stole from a little slice of heaven in return, geeky guy definitely thought so; he'd collapsed into a chair and was hyperventilating into a brown paper bag.

"Hey, B!" Faith swiped a drink from the hands of a guy hovering next to them and steered Buffy away as the guys shouts after them were drowned out by the steady thump of the music pumping from the dance floor. "Doing okay?"

Buffy shrugged. "Average. There's too many hustlers in here already, let's go somewhere else."

"What about the cowboy?" Faith sipped at her beer pulled a disgusted face and pressed it into the hands of a passing guy, she smiled wanly, murmured "on the house," in his ear and reached round to grope his arse. Before he could reply Faith had pocketed his wallet and the crowd had carried him far away.

"He's an attractive man that's been drinking alone all night, it's a lost cause." Buffy shot back, it didn't matter that she'd been contemplating the exact same move two minutes earlier, her senses were spiking all over the place. It didn't feel right. And in a business where you relied on manipulating other people's feelings, your own were pretty important.

"Then he'll be going to the bar to get another drink soon." Faith sighed. "Just this one, Buffy, and then we'll go. We've easily pulled enough for the next month's rent, he can be our victory dance."

Buffy knew there was no point in arguing with Faith when she'd made up her mind about something. Plus, she'd called her Buffy and not B; she only ever did that when she really wanted Buffy's cooperation.

"Fine. But-"

"Yeah, I know, you broke it you bought it." Faith looped her arm in Buffy's and led her back toward the main bar, carefully controlling the pace of their strides so that their path would coincide with the cowboy's. Buffy's heart beat faster as they approached the denim-clad man, nervous in a way she hadn't been since her first ever lift. She could see the depth of the stubble on his chin and the exact detail of his jacket. The bulge of cash in his shirt pocket. Faith brushed into him.

"Sorry!" She cooed, steadying herself with one hand against his chest, the man barely seemed to glance at her as he nodded stiffly.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm just fine now." A southern note had subtly woven it's way into Faith's natural Boston drawl and Buffy marvelled at her ability to capture the male populations attention so mechanically. Faith patted his jacket. "This is gorgeous, where did you get it from?"

"The Gap." There was something about the hollowness of the cowboy's voice that had Buffy tugging at Faith's shirt sleeves. This was not a good time for Faith to make a night of it.

"Thanks for catching my sister, but we have to leave now." She politely interrupted.

"Of course." He nodded again, but Buffy paid him no heed, guiding Faith out of The Black Rose with no more than a wave to Wes and a cursory check behind them. The cowboy was at the bar now, but she could feel his eyes on them, and when the semi-fresh air of LA at night hit them Buffy couldn't have been more relieved. She felt a rush of giddiness at their successful night. She shouldn't have worried, Faith knew what she was doing, maybe they could go out tonight, hit a few bars in a more social capacity. Faith had charmed a business man out of his taxi at least, oh, Buffy judged his sharply tailored suit, three districts away from his house. Faith waved her over and Buffy slipped inside yelling goodbye to their favourite bouncer as he waved them off.

Faith flicked through a fat leather wallet passing a couple of bills forward to the driver as she gave him directions to their apartment at the Hyperion Hotel. Buffy settled back into the polyester seats of the cab and fished marine-man's phone out of her pocket. It was new, barely used by the look of it, and worth at least a two hundred dollars second hand. Good times. She closed her eyes and breathed in the smell of satisfaction.

"Hey, Buff, you know that last guy I was talking to?"

Buffy's eyes snapped back open.

"Yes."

"Guess where he works?" 

Buffy twisted around to meet her sister's nervous gaze. "NASA?" She replied optimistically.

"The whole four-letter initial thing is close."

"UCAS?"

Faith frowned. "What the hell's that?"

"No idea. I heard some British guys bitching about it once."

"Oh."

Silence stretched out between them and Buffy tried to dampen down the rising panic in her veins. "Faith, are you going to tell me who he works for or not?"

The Taxi ground to a halt.

"Hey, that was quick, good work that taxi man." Faith joked, as she stepped out of the cab with all the air of somebody hoping that the conversation they'd just been having would be rapidly forgotten about. Buffy scrambled out of the car and slammed the door behind her, ignoring the disgruntled complaint of its driver as she seized Faith's elbow.

"Tell me."

Faith's shoulders slumped. "LAPD." She muttered quietly.

Buffy stiffened, short stilted sentences mostly consisting of swear words shot through her head in rapid succession. "Please tell me you're joking."

"Fuck."

Lindsey's thoughts had been so full of a small dark haired goddess and her equally cute sister that he'd ordered another brew before he'd got his wallet out. And now it wasn't there. Those little bitches! He scowled, he couldn't believe they'd had the audacity to lift the wallet of an LAPD fraud cop. Sure, he wasn't in his district, but he'd heard often enough from crooks under pressure that cops gave off a certain aura and violent crime not with standing, a cop's money was pretty damn safe.

"Is there a problem?" The bartender spoke with a clipped British accent, but his tousled hair and a five o'clock shadow spoke of a man who'd seen better days. But those girls knew him. The blonde one had made an effort to say goodbye to him. Despite their post-crime hasty exit.

"Do you know where I can find those two girls that just left?"

"I'm not at liberty to give out that information, it's against company policy."

"I'm a cop."

The bar tender nodded. "May I see your ID?"

"I would, if they hadn't stolen it." Lindsey ground out. "Now, let's talk about your immigration status."

Their apartment was only a couple of blocks away, he'd managed to catch a lift in a passing cop car right to the converted hotel they lived in, on arrival he'd wasted no time in forcing his way into their crummy apartment. When the door isn't locked it's not a hard thing to do. Stripped furniture lined the walls, and cold air wafted in from the open window.

They'd left things behind. A couple of cheap trashy novels and a book about art, a pair of ripped jeans and a half eaten box of cream crackers in the cupboards. They'd taken the money and run, and now he'd have to clean up the mess they'd left behind. That was the way of his world, and in that first tiny heartbreaking moment, he was really tired of it.

TBC…


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter One**

Sunnydale, California  
Eight Years Before The Auction

_It had been easy enough to slip out of the house, her mom would go apocalyptic when she realised that Buffy had snuck out on the first night in their new town, but the place was a dive and she just wanted a little entertainment. Some quiet enquiries had told her that this little club, The Bronze, was where everybody hung out. And it wasn't convincing her that this town was anything less than the small town rut she's already made of it._

Coming through the door they'd stamped her hand and told her she couldn't drink, and inside she'd been faced with the bare skeleton factory, half kitted out with a stage and a dance floor in a pretence of some of the greater LA factory-clubs. The other half had a bar and some steel tables and looked a hell of a lot more like a coffee joint than any nightclub she'd ever been to. On the stage a woman warbled off key while the backing band glanced desperately at each other, nervously engaging in frantic attempts to get the ragged crowd on the dance floor to start moving.

Determined to make the best of the backwater she found herself in, Buffy headed to the bathroom to rid herself of the alcohol-free mark on the back of her hand and a few minutes later was sauntering determinedly over to the bar. She looked good, and she knew she was getting a lot of attention from the guys scattered around the edge of the dance floor, revelling in their presence she paused at the bottom of the stairs to get her bearings. Over at the bar a tragically out of fashion – and probably boiling in her twelve layers of wool – girl sat at the bar flicking through a ring binder and writing something on a legal pad. Normally, Buffy would've dismissed the fashion victim out of hand, but something about her caught Buffy's attention long enough to make it difficult for Buffy to do anything but go over to talk to her. As it was Buffy was new to Sunnydale and this kid probably wasn't, Buffy needed some company and while she'd rather have a delicious guy… well, she wasn't going to turn down any potential friends.

As it was, someone else got there first. Sleekly dressed in a slinky black number, the girl was tall beautiful and incredibly aware of her power. A crowd of wannabe's trailed in her wake, happy to be in the shadow of girl-in-black's infinite greatness. Buffy hated her already. Stopping next to fashion victim girl, girl-in-black glanced knowingly at one of her groupie's and reaching over pulled the paper fashion-victim was writing on out from underneath her hands.

The fashion victim spun around in her seat, "Hey, give that back Cordelia."

Cordelia just sneered unfolding the paper and reading it aloud in a simpering mock tone for the delight of her friends "'Dear Xander, I know that we have been friends for a long time… but I have always felt that we could be more.'" Cordelia let out a long laugh. "This is completely priceless!"

"Cordelia, please don't."

"Come on, Willow, I'm just being a friend." Cordelia folded the letter and slipped in into her open purse. "I'm going to show this to a few on my friends maybe read it out in homeroom, just to get everybody's opinion you understand, and then you an have it back, I swear."

Willow squirmed under Cordelia's gaze. "Please don't, I just-"

Willow's protestations went completely unheard; Cordelia was already walking away, laughing with her gaggle of followers at their victory. Watching from the stairs any ill thought Buffy had had about Willow's dress sense had been washed away in a tide of righteous anger, determinedly Buffy set off back across the dance floor, ignoring every masculine hand that slipped along her waist as she moved through the dancers.

And walked slap bang straight into Cordelia.

"God! Are you blind?"

Buffy stepped back in shock, "sorry, my mistake."

"I should say so." Cordelia huffed, flicking her mass of long dark hair over her shoulder, "now get out of my way."

Obligingly, Buffy stepped to one side to let the group pass before heading back over toward Willow. Sliding onto the stool next to the girl Buffy noted that she was prettier than she had thought, even looking miserable as she did with a little make-up and playing with her hair… of course, Buffy slid the folded piece of paper in her hand under Willow's nose; she looked a whole load more beautiful when she smiled.

"Thought you might like it back." Buffy commented lightly, as she waved the bartender over to order a drink.

Willow beamed at her; giddily she jittered on the edge of her seat like she'd just taken twenty shots of straight caffeine. "How'd you get this?"

Buffy shrugged nonchalantly, letting her fingers dance across the table top in time to the background music. "Seemed like you needed it."

"Thank you." Willow tried to suppress another grin as she carefully slipped the paper away inside her folders. "I don't recognise you, do you go to Sunnydale High?"

"Yup. Or at least tomorrow when I start sophomore year I will do. I just transferred here from LA."

"Really? Me too. I'm Willow Rosenberg."

Buffy shook the proffered hand. "Buffy Summers." She wanted to ask about the Xander, Cordelia had been mocking her with but it seemed wrong to do so, and Buffy struggled to come up with an appropriate friends-making question. Somehow she suspected 'want a joint?' wasn't the way to go.

Willow broke the silence first, "What was it like living in LA? It always seems so exciting."

Smoke. Fire. Screams. Buffy shrugged. "It's different."

**Sunnydale, California  
Four Days Before The Auction**

Willow flashed Angel a reassuring smile as they trailed around the Art gallery. Snyder surged ahead of them, a violent steamer Angel wouldn't object to crashing into an iceberg.

"This piece is nice."

Snyder ground to a halt and spun round to fix his beady glare on Willow. Angel could see her forcibly preventing herself from shrinking back. Funny how principals never stopped being principals, even when they were now your boss. Except maybe that was really the same thing.

"Nice?" Snyder sneered, his diminutive size completely failing to reduce the effect of his disapproval on Willow, Angel fought the urge to sneak in front of her in case the principal resorted to physical abuse.

"It has a calming feel to it, it could be good for the students." Willow twitched. "Maybe."

"It's not for the students." The words passed slowly through Snyder's lips, dripping with condescension "it's for their parents. What we want is something that looks like it's worth more than it really is. Not calming."

"Whatever we," she flinched at the look Snyder gave her, "uh, you, choose has to stay in school for the rest of the week, it might as well do some good while it's there."

"It might get the students more interested in Art." The words hit the air before Angel really considered saying them, and as Snyder's gaze shifted from the redhead beside him and toward Angel he felt himself changing back into his earlier trouble-making angsting teenage self. Unfortunately, he didn't have the hazy misapprehension that adulthood would never happen behind him any more, and along with the loss of… at any rate, he'd never be as comfortable standing up to authority as he had been. He was pretty sure there was something wrong with that thought chain.

Snyder was still staring at him.

"A well rounded education is a good thing?" Angel volunteered, helplessly.

"If you think I'm a principal because I care about well rounded education you're more of an idiot than I thought. The school needs money. We will auction off donations, including a painting from your gallery for money. Then we will have money, and you will have fifty percent. Do I need to make myself clearer."

"Uh, Princi-"

"What?" He snapped.

"If Angel's getting fifty percent that's not, technically," Willow hesitated. "Well so much of a… donation."

Snyder did up the buttons on his jacket. "The school board insisted that I put items in that auction, you think I'm going to let those retched fools keep all the money?"

Grabbing his leather satchel Snyder gazed imperiously around the room, as though passing his final distasteful judgement on the gallery. "Pick whatever you want. Just make sure it'll profit." And with that he was gone, leaving nothing but the bell above the door clattering in praise of his exit and two slightly stunned school friends staring into his wake.

"Willow?"

"U-huh?"

"Why exactly do you work for him?"

"I –" She turned to face him. "You know. I can't really remember. But at least if I work with him I'll be there to witness it when somebody finally cracks and murders him."

Angel smiled. "Or he gets eaten by a giant snake."

Willow laughed, running one hand through her freshly cropped hair she finally started to relax. "I'd forgotten about that. Those were the days huh? When everything could be fixed by a story." She smiled again, fresh memories lighting her face with every passing moment. "Remember when Tucker crashed the prom with his Puppy and tried to get it to attack Cordelia?"

Angel laughed, "and his brother tried it at the school play with pigeons, it was a miserable failure of course."

Willow raised one eyebrow. "You were at the school play?"

"Snyder made me paint the scenery."

"And do you remember when Buffy's mom-"

Angel could feel his face falling. Could feel the coldness seeping through him. Willow stopped talking, the relief of her memory filled moment now clouded by those other memories. Her eyes dropped to the floor, "sorry I-"

"No." He smiled softly at her. Of all people, it was not this girl's fault. This girl in front of him that had once been Buffy's best friend. "It's fine." He motioned the inside of the gallery with one sweeping gesture. "Which one would you like?"

Sated again, Willow milled around the inside of the gallery, intense concentration written across her movements as she settled down to her task.

She moved toward the large open windows at the front of his premises and he followed her with his eyes. Selling art was about letting each person wander on their own, letting their imaginations flow unhampered by the banter and sales pitch of selling a car or clothes. 'Any other product needs a life-style attached to it,' Giles had once told him, 'but art? Art sells itself.' Anti-social as he was, it was little wonder that Angel was much better at this kind of selling than any other.

A flash of gold interrupted his musings, nothing more than a reflection in the glass, a blonde girl on the other side of the street. A few years ago, he'd've been out the door in an instant, running after his dreams as though one day she really would just turn up again. He was not so much of a fool anymore.

Buffy had gone. And no matter how much he might imagine strangers to walk and talk and dress like her, she wasn't coming back to his corner of nowhere.

"Angel? What about this one?"

He accepted that. What he couldn't accept was how extraordinarily difficult it was to move on. To settle himself into a life where he wasn't searching every woman's face for that telltale hint of her smile. To care about life without her. Those were the things he couldn't quite accept.

He smiled at Willow across the gallery. "That one?" He glanced at the speckled canvas. "Local artist. Could be a good investment piece."

"Could be."

"I don't like being here." Buffy curled her fist around the fresh coffee shop coffee that steamed away in front of her and inhaled it's caffeiney goodness like a calming drug. "It's not right."

"Of course you don't want to be here, B - Crap!" Faith glowered at Buffy across the booth as she rubbed her shin. "Of course you don't want to be here. Joan." She ground out sneering at Buffy's false name. "You know, I thought our parents had bad taste in names. I guess it runs in the family."

Buffy ignored her. "We need to leave as soon as possible. Too many people know us here." As if suddenly reminded of their location she glanced around the polyester booths and steel tables of the largely empty coffee shop, checking if anyone might be able to hear their hushed conversation.

"They know you not me. Besides," Faith took a sip from her own sugary concoction, "we haven't got anywhere else to go. We're stranded here until we can gather some funds whether you like it or not."

"If you hadn't beaten up our ride we wouldn't have been stuck here at all, we'd be in Mexico like all sensible people on the run."

"He was perving on me!" Faith cried out in self-defence. It was disingenuous, but Buffy was more than a little short of caring. They had to find a way to make some serious cash, and fast, in a town that would never accept her as cute and innocent.

It was more than a pain in the ass.

"B…" Buffy glared at Faith. "…J, It's not so bad. It's got a Starbucks, and The Bronze, and you probably won't even see him."

Buffy frowned. "You realise you just jinxed that horribly don't you?"

Faith just rolled her eyes. "I can't believe you still go for all that fate crap, oh," she put on a falsetto voice "Angel was the love of my life."

Buffy flinched. "After that LAPD shtick, did you expect me to react any other way? This isn't Hustle, there's no reason for us not to go to jail for the rest of our lives."

"Don't exaggerate. We never killed anyone."

"And it's gunna stay that way."

Silence arched between the pair as they glared at each other from across the table, and an old man stumped across the sidewalk on the other side of the glass from them. Buffy didn't recognise him. There was no reason, statistically, that she should, even if she had lived in this town for the end of her teenage years. Still, every time she went into a shop or passed through a busy street she kept expecting to run head first into someone she knew, to be forced to confront them with a battery of lies. And worst of all, she knew with the sinking eventuality of all people caught in their lies, that sooner or later the person she ran into wouldn't be the guy that sat next to her in algebra or one of Dawn's babysitter's, but some one who had really known her. Somebody who could never be taken by her insistence that of course she wasn't Buffy; Xander, Spike, Willow or Giles; or worse: Angel.

"What about Angel?"

"What about him?"

"Maybe we could use him."

Anger flashed in Buffy's eyes. "No."

"But-"

"The answer is no, Faith. Think of something else."

Faith shrugged. "There isn't anyone else. In case you haven't noticed, this shit-hole hasn't been doing all that well recently. He's the only one with any money." She glanced around the coffee shop, and in a moment was on her feet leaving Buffy to watch her as she sauntered straight up to the bored looking college student flicking through a crumpled paper at the counter.

"Hey sweetie, have you finished with this newspaper?" She leaned forward on her toes, and even from this angle Buffy could tell she was giving him a good view of her assets. 

"U-uh, y-yeah, sure." He stumbled over his reply.

"Thanks." She plied the pages from his grip and sauntered back towards her sister, hips swinging provocatively.

A moment later the newspaper had thumped down on the steel table, it's cheap recycled pages slick with donut grease and water splashes.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Buffy asked tiredly.

"Finance, middle section."

Buffy barely had the energy left to frown as she flicked through the pages. "You read a newspaper?"

"It's not like I can't read." Faith spat back indignantly. "Besides, you get the point. He's the only person even remotely viable."

Buffy paused, smiling as she paused in her perusal of the small town paper. "I want to get Principal Snyder."

Faith frowned, "B, he's as broke as the rest of them."

Buffy smiled wickedly at her sister's confusion. "You always lacked imagination, Faith. People aren't the only things that can have money."

Faith's face crinkled up in confusion. "What are you talking about, and how in the hell is that going to work?"

"To start with we've got to get jobs."

"We've got to get what?"

Buffy dropped the paper down between them, and matched Faith's indignant gaze. "From now on, Faith Summers, you're going to be flipping road kill at Sunnydale High School, professionally."

"No. Fucking. Way."

constructive criticism is your friend – feel free to leave a review or send me an email at 


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Two**

Sunnydale, California  
Eight Years Before The Auction

_"I am not here to be your friend." Principal Snyder sneered from across the heavy desk, "I do not, and will never, put the pal in principal."_

Buffy tried to look appropriately respecting and fearful at the tiny balding man trying to menace her from across the desk he could hardly see over. "Yes, Principal Snyder." She muttered.

"I am here," he continued tersely, "to make sure that at the end of the three years during which - I am assured by the school governors - I am obliged to make a place for you, there is still a school left." He stood up and paced around his desk. "Unlike, I am told, your last school."

"It was just the gym," Buffy grumbled, "the rest of the school was fine."

"You are still an arsonist." Snyder pointed out bluntly. "As such, here is a list of classes you will not be allowed to register for this fall, for the safety of all."

Buffy blanched as she was handed the extremely long list of banned classes. Skimming the list, her eyes widened in shock. "I'm not allowed to take geometry? Isn't that a requirement for my diploma?"

Snyder smiled tightly. "I am required to educate you, Miss Summers, not to see you graduate. And I will not have criminals on my campus wielding potentially dangerous compasses."

Buffy raised one eyebrow and shoved the list in with her other papers. "I'm not Carrie, Principal Snyder, I can control myself without you banning me from ever touching any pencils or pens."

The principal, instead of resenting Buffy's attitude seemed crestfallen that he hadn't thought of the pencil thing already.

"Bring it up with the health and safety people. Who I'm sure," Snyder smirked, "will be absolutely thrilled at the prospect of entertaining your criminal needs."

Buffy stood up. "Am I done now?"

"Yes," Snyder sat back down behind his desk, apparently satisfied with his days work harassing the new student. "Angelus should be outside, he's going to show you where everything is."

Buffy thought about saying thanks, but the word 'geometry' flashed across her subconscious in big neon lights and after that, Buffy just really didn't feel like it.

In the hallway a moment later, Buffy tried not to glower too much at the passing students as she shoved her papers into her shoulder bag, loosing her grip the pile of paper slipped and hit the floor flying out around Buffy and across the hallway. "Great first impression, Buffy." she muttered to herself as she knelt down to gather them up again.

"I'm not sure that talking to yourself is that much of an improvement on dropping stuff, but I could be wrong."

Mortified, Buffy peeked up to see who was talking to her, hoping to God it wasn't… that tall dark handsome guy she'd seen earlier. Who was, Murphy's law coming into full swing, standing right in front of her and looking more gorgeous than ever. An understated pair of loose black slacks and a red shirt towered up above her, and blushing Buffy realised her head was hovering just in front of his crotch. "And I'm betting you're Angelus." She shot back as he dropped to his knees to help her pick up her things.

He nodded, "Angel, please, only my dad calls me Angelus." The subtle tones in his dark spiky hair caught Buffy's attention whole-heartedly as he glanced down at the paper in front of him.

"Banned classes?"

She tried to snatch it away but Angel pulled the paper toward him and out of his reach. "'Woodwork,'" he read out "'metal work, home economics, any practical science class involving Bunsen burners on naked flames'-" He glanced up at her in surprise, a wry smile touching the corner of his lips as his brown eyes met her green. "What did you do, burn down your old school?"

"Uh… maybe?" Buffy replied nervously, ready and waiting for the accusations and wary looks she so desperately didn't want to come but that she knew would.

Instead, Angel just burst out laughing.

**Sunnydale, California  
Three Days Before The Auction**

A neatly typed - if completely fabricated – resume, and a clipped but gentle telephone manner was all it had taken to get Buffy into the school. In fact, she was now in possession of her very first job that didn't involve badly sponging down cars or mutilating the lawns of her neighbours when she was ten years old. The halls were completely different, her own high school having suffered a severe fire during her graduation, and the new school they had built on it's grounds was completely unlike the original. But somehow it still smelt the same. Dusty and sweaty, old flyers for the Christmas dance littered the hallways like so much unwanted confetti. School was the place that nobody cared enough about to keep immaculately clean and tidy, the place where the ghosts of a million pasts crowded the halls.

She'd met Angel at this school.

And she was being beyond ridiculous.

Fishing around in her bag she grabbed at the slip of paper she'd written her instructions on. Her eyes flipped from door to door reading their inscriptions as she moved through the hallway; Basement, History 1, Caretaker, Faculty Lounge, Guidance Office.

Guidance Office.

Where she would be spending her days convincing troubled kids that life wasn't really all that bad. For a while at least. Frankly, as soon as she could get out of these god-forsaken halls the better, there was, she considered, a damn good reason the last high school they had in this town blew up. And the news that Snyder was still in charge did not fill her with confidence.

Inside the room-of-poorly-qualified-guidance there was a large office desk and a few early staff milled around, nursing cups of coffee as they set up their desks and shuffled stacks of paper.

"Joan Hospers?"

That's you, Buffy. "Yes, that's me." She turned to face the voice's source, a middle aged woman, whose unkempt hair was flecked with grey. She looked vaguely familiar and the feeling was apparently mutual because the woman frowned tightly, eyebrows knitting together in concentration.

"Are you Mrs Aiken?" She kept her voice crisp and polite with English tones, better to distinguish from her earlier teenage self.

The moment of doubt passed and Mrs Aiken nodded, holding out her hand in greeting, they shook once in a cursory movement. "Call me Eva, please. I'll show you where you're going to be working. It's not much, but after the rebuild…"

"Of course."

The walk was short and Eva eyed her reaction warily as she presented Buffy with the half walled dull grey cubicle that was to be her residence. "If you don't mind me asking, you seem rather over qualified for this position."

Buffy smiled politely, struggling to maintain her impassive and uninteresting persona. "Times are hard on everyone."

Mrs Aiken nodded sagely, but said nothing more on the subject. Buffy made a mental note that the tight finances of the town were a taboo topic for conversation as she picked up the pen holder on the desk and started to play with it. "I prepared a list of the students you're going to see today. If you need to look at their files you should be able to find them in the file office, it's the next door down this corridor. Opposite Willow Rosenberg's office."

Buffy dropped the holder. The dull thud of its impact on the desk vaguely registered, and she straightened it up, instinctively trying to cover the movement.

"Do you know her?"

Buffy shrugged. "I don't think so."

"You seemed like…" Buffy stared blankly back at her, and Eva shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. "I must be mistaken. If you need anything don't hesitate to ask."

The woman shuffled away and Buffy glanced disparagingly round her cell like cubicle. Willow was here. This con was going to be more than a little risky.

The nighttime air was chilly, sharp winds pulling at Buffy's hair and clothes as she snuck around the alleys in the slightly more upmarket end of town. Even in January the cool air was about as cold as it got in this corner of California and the wind seemed to be trying to tell her that what she was about to do was an extremely bad idea. She'd never been an angel, and she had no doubt Angel had casually absorbed every bit of her criminal knowledge over their three years of misadventures. The rules of thievery were simple: never rob a felon, and never rob someone that knows as much as a felon.

Still. Here she was, about the break the rules… again.

She came across the sheer steel of the Galleries back entrance quickly enough. And a furtive glance around the steel's smooth surfaces told her not to even bother trying to force her way in that way. Nervously she froze as laughter echoed down the alley, couples returning home after late dinner's covered the brick jungle in creeping shadows that made Buffy twitch every time they washed over her. That feeling was back again. That crawling ache in her belly that was quite firmly telling her to walk away now.

She stared up and around the doorframe. No ground floor windows. One second storey casement, covered with a fine mesh of chicken coop wire, and though she couldn't see the lock from where she was she could easily tell it wasn't any of the more malicious types. Buffy frowned. It wasn't like Angel to leave such an obvious opening.

Or at least, obvious for anyone not five foot nothing and without any supernatural ability to jump eighteen feet into the air.

Buffy bit back a sigh. She'd just have to come back tomorrow, or maybe try one of the neighbouring towns for the supplies she needed. It was riskier going to another town and buying over the counter, but if she had to… she wasn't sure she'd even be sorry for the compromise. She resented the idea of stealing from Angel, and if she didn't have to... she swung her gaze around the alley once more, if she didn't – crap. There was building work going on a few buildings down, and a tall wooden ladder was propped up against the red brick walls of the structure.

"Fuck." Buffy muttered under her breath darkly. She was perfectly happy with going back to Faith and saying the robbery wasn't possible, but now that it was possible… for a thief Buffy really was a shit liar.

Ten tense minutes later Buffy was perilously balanced at the top of the rickety ladder and trying to remember exactly what the hell she was doing this for. One hand deftly snipped at the chicken wire with a tiny pair of wire cutters while the other desperately clung to the top rung of the ladder. In a moment the wire was gone, and two long flat pieces of metal were being wedged in between the window and it's wooden frame. One swift twist and with a sickening crunch the old frame splintered and gave.

Buffy smiled, satisfied at the ease with which she had dealt with the window problem, the rush of success coursing through her like an illicit drug. Of course, now she had to actually find some way of balancing on the ladder such that she could actually climb inside, and then -

Bright light shone Buffy full in the face. Caught for a moment, thief in the torchlight, her eyes widened and the ladder shook dangerously below her. Long terrifying moments passed as Buffy's eyes accustomed to the light and her mind caught up with her racing heart. Ducking out of view she peeped as carefully as she could in through the window, one hand pressed against the shattered frame to try and keep it in place. The light was coming from a bare bulb hanging in the centre of the room, but from the angle she was at she could see little else but a nicotine stained ceiling.

Pressed close against the brick wall she could hear the distant thumps of whoever was in the room moving about. Either there was serious remodelling going on in there or whoever it was was exceptionally angry, slapping papers down heavily and scuffing chairs across the floor without any care for the chairs longevity. Then, just as abruptly as it had begun the light was gone, and a violent door slam rang through the night dropping her into darkness that left her pressed up against a wall in complete impenetrable gloom, some thin wooden struts all that was between her and the ground fifteen feet below. She bit back the string of curses sitting on her tongue in favour of a much safer silence and waited as her eyes adjusted to the reduced light. Reassured that the ladder was still there, and no, it had not suddenly suffered from some defect that would cause it to collapse at any minute she made her way back up the last few rungs and peered into the darkened room. As much as she could see of it was empty and her suspicions about its occupants had been confirmed, she could dimly make out the white outline of papers strewn all across a desk and a chair on its side in the middle of the floor. Counting herself extremely lucky that whoever it was that had been in the room had been too upset to notice her at the window she carefully loosened the window from it's last grip on it's frame and lowered it into the darkness below her, it hit something solid quickly and she left it resting there against the wall while she geared herself up for her own, hopefully as quiet, mission into the dark room.

Carefully she placed both hands on the sill of the window and eyes fiercely closed took her leap of faith, jumping up off the top rung of the ladder her heart beat heavily in her ears as the ladder twisted and soared away from her, clattering an age later against the wall on the other side of the alley, the sharp noises echoing around the alley impossibly loudly as Buffy struggled to hold her position, half in and half out the window she braced her feet against the brick wall and with one final push shoved herself through the window, swinging her feet round deftly to be in front of her she struggled to find the ledge the window was resting on and her heart raced with whispered prayers to the god of silent thieves that it wouldn't give as it bowed unforgivingly under her weight. Taking her fate in her hands she jumped again not quite managing to get all of her weight off the shelf before she landed on the floor the shelf collapsed with a sickening crack of wood and metal, the shelves contents flying off it's sliding surface and splaying across the room, with steady thumps and clatters they landed against her form with ever more painful accuracy.

Horror struck at the sheer mountain of noise she had just made she scurried for the door and somewhere to hide, absolute fear blinding her to the practicalities like a deer running from a forest fire. Reaching the door in just a few steps she reached for the handle and threw it open, ready to pelt down the corridor and toward somewhere even resembling a safe hiding place. Instead she ploughed straight into a man.

He was small and wry, cheekbones poking through his pale complexion the same way they always had. Letting his fag drop from his lips to the floor, the bleached blonde took a step back. "Hello, love." He finally murmured, one hand fixing round her arm in an iron tight grip. "I didn't expect to see you here."

Buffy was struggling to even think a conscious line of thought, let alone anything that might pass as a response to Spike's sudden presence at Angel's shop of all bloody places. Instead she stood, mute and acquiescent she let Spike bundle her down the corridor in absolute shock at what was happening to her.

"Not talking, huh? Guess I'd better see what happens when Angel sees you then… shame you didn't let me know you were coming, could've made a fortune selling tickets to witness this little reunion."

TBC…

Wiked Witch, a2zmom and natural buff buff; dudes, I love you guys… and all will be explained.

Eventually.

As always, feedback is very welcome.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Three**

Sunnydale, California  
Seven Years Before The Auction

_There were five of them lounging around the table in the cafeteria. Buffy poked the pile of green slime in front of her experimentally. It wobbled. Narrowing her eyes she poked it again._

"Figured it out yet?" Xander teased.

"Nope." She threw down her plastic fork in resignation, "I give up. What the hell is it?"

Delightedly, Xander uncovered his own plate full of warm green goo. "This, my friend, is mixed meat stew."

Next to her, Angel's grip tightened around her waist, as he shifted to face Xander. "Then why is it green?"

"That," Xander proclaimed as he shovelled more of the mix into his mouth, "is the eternal mystery of school dinners."

"Maybe it's better if it stays an eternal mystery." Oz put in, pushing his own gloop around cautiously. 

Buffy shrugged as she pushed hers away in favour of a Jell-o mould. "I think I prefer it when eternal mysteries aren't part of our recommended diet."

"I kinda like the green. It's festive."

"Only you would think that, Wils."

"That's why we love her." Buffy smiled, letting her hand slide over Angel's knee under the cover of the table. He pulled her closer in response, pressing a kiss against her cheek. The two of them had been going out for more than a year and even now, lust seemed to constantly course between them in a way it never had with anyone else Buffy had dated. Smiling quietly to herself as the gang chattered around her, Buffy revelled in the hard wall of his chest behind her and the little island of calm Angel always seemed to create especially for her.

"Willow? Can we join you?"

Chairs shuffled around, and Buffy glanced up to see Amy Madison and that goth guy she hung around with… she couldn't remember his name, Michael maybe? Taking a seat at their table. She nodded in recognition and Amy mouthed hi back as she delved deep into conversation with Willow and Oz.

Pleasantries out the way Amy started struggling with her juice box while the guy – what was his name? it seemed rude to ask after so long – glanced around at the expectant faces. "So," he ventured, "what are you guys doing for Halloween?"

Oz shrugged. "Gig at the Bronze."

"Guess we'll be there then." Buffy nodded at Willow who blushed a little, having only just got over her telling everybody she ever met 'my boyfriend's in a band' stage.

"If you want," Angel added, "you can all come to mine afterwards. My brother's going to be visiting, so…" he trailed off as six blank faces stared at him in absolute surprise.

Buffy smacked him in the chest. "You have a brother? How did I not know this?"

Angel shrugged, "It didn't seem very important. He lives in England with his mum."

Oz glanced at his watch and stood up, pressing a kiss to the top of Willow's head as he motioned at the clock. "Angel, we've gotta go."

Standing so Angel could get up, Buffy caught his wrist and hesitantly caught his eye. She shouldn't be so judgemental she knew, there was plenty Angel didn't know about her but...

"Buffy?" Concerned eyes. "What is it?"

She smiled weakly. "I was just wondering what his name was."

Angel frowned. "Who?"

"Your brother."

"Oh." He pressed a soft kiss to her lips as he headed out the door with Oz, " William, but everyone calls him Spike."

**Sunnydale, California  
Three Days Before The Auction**

"Are you under some delusion that I care about art?" Snyder sneered, with his hands in his pockets and his pokey rat-like face glaring disdainfully around the back room you'd've thought he'd been forced to come to the gallery. Instead, just as Angel had been locking up for the night, late in the evening as usual, Snyder had burst in through the glass fronted doors and started waltzing around like he owned the place.

Angel had resisted the urge to shove him out on his ass for the sake of Willow, but even the sanity of his red headed friend was struggling to retain it's place as a good enough reason to allow the man to remain in his company.

Eyes narrowing Angel crossed the room and gripped Snyder in one swift movement around the neck, forcing the man to peddle backwards until he was shoved firmly with his back against the wall, Angel brought his face inches from the Principals and ground out: "No, Principal Snyder, I am not. In fact, if I ever thought you gave a rat's ass about anything but your reputation I might die of shock."

Or he did in his head.

In reality Angel took a step back and let Snyder glower on his own, whilst silently wishing to God this bane of his life would just fucking leave. Snyder shuffled around the room, and it became more and more clear that he wasn't going to explain his presence without some prompting, and he wasn't going to leave without whatever he'd come for.

"Did you need something, Principal Snyder?" Angel finally asked, fed up of waiting.

"When you were involved with Miss Summers did she reveal some of the less… legal aspects of her life?"

Angel stared blankly back at the man. He wasn't going to implicate himself if that was what the pile of snot pretending to be a human being wanted. After all, if he was trying to ingratiate himself, bringing Buffy up was a bad way to do it.

"No reply. Very wise."

Angel twitched, annoyed at the compliment.

"Still, you two were so… close. I'm sure you must've known. Everyone else knew."

Angel shrugged. "High school was a long time ago. Why are you asking me about it?"

"Nothing." Snyder shrugged, the smile at the corner of his lips betraying his love of the painful game he was playing. "But if you knew, perhaps there was a deal we could do."

"A deal?" Angel was purposefully vague, his own six months in jail was a fresh, unwelcome memory, and he had no intention of going back.

"Mm. One that would benefit us both, financially, and I understand you've been having problems in that area."

Angel turned toward the door, "we all are Principal Snyder, however if what you are suggesting is in anyway illegal-"

"ANGEL!"

Angel rolled his eyes and waited for Spike to crash unwelcome into the room. The bugger didn't even work for him, but he was always around poking around in Angel's things and generally being a pain in the ass.

Frowning, Angel could feel Snyder's expectant eyes boring into his back as he himself turn to stare at the closed door behind him. "Spike?" He yelled out cautiously.

"Just a minute, peaches, for fuck's sake." There was a crash and a muffled bout of swear words. Angel turned around just in time to see Snyder slowly edging out of the door, a worried look in his eyes. Probably thought Angel and Spike were gay lovers instead of extremely ill suited brothers.

"Will you not call me Peaches?" Angel yelled back for the millionth time, ignoring Snyder's hasty, and frankly welcome, exit in favour of finding out what the hell Spike was up to in the back room. Shoving through the swing doors he fully expected to find Spike prowling around: probably drunk, definitely trying to steal something and just possibly with a woman passed out on the floor.

As it happened, there was a woman, she just wasn't passed out, or, he was fairly sure, drunk at all.

Instead she was small and blonde and Buffy in every way, right down to the way she was staring at him with her mouth open. He was fairly sure he was wearing a similar expression of shock and surprise, in fact judging by the happy expression on Spike's face, he probably looked like a gormless idiot. Since he felt like a gormless idiot it seemed an unfair trade off to have to look that way too, at least some part of him ought to be coming across as suave and sophisticated and handsome and -

Buffy recovered first. Snapping her mouth shut abruptly she slumped against the chair she was sitting in. "Hi Angel." She murmured, her eyes fixed on him two seas of green that – he tore his attention away.

"Hello." He replied lamely. "Where did… uh, I mean, how did you get here?"

There was a long pause.

"Is that all you're going to fucking say?"

It was Spike, he'd gone from self-satisfied smirk to full on glower and he was stomping toward Angel with an angry glimmer in his eye. "This little bitch gets both of us locked up in that god awful shit-house –" he put on a false simpering voice "-correctional facility -" and the voice was gone as rapidly as it came "-and that's all you're going to fucking say? How did you fucking get here?"

"I should…" Buffy stood up. "I… I'm really… I mean, I know I didn't… Oh crap." She finally ended, dropping her eyes back to the table, Angel didn't know if it was penitence that guided the move or if it was carefully planned to mask any one of a million lies she might be about to come out with. He didn't even know what he wanted the answer to that question to be. He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted Spike not to be there and he wanted to rant and rave and pin his blonde goddess to the floor and ravish her until they both collapsed from sheer sexual exhaustion.

Instead he hovered, feeling pathetic, confused and completely unmanly - barely a foot from the position he'd been in when he'd first seen her. 

"I'm sorry."

Silence yawned between the three of them even Spike silencing his constant grumbling to stare in shock at Buffy.

"I never meant to hurt you, and I never wanted to leave." With no one stopping her, Buffy just kept going and from the terror stricken expression on her face, she had no idea just how far her confessions would go either.

Spike, of course, ruined it all too soon. His voice was softer than before almost murmuring, "why'd you leave then?" and Angel could hear the tiny note of sympathy betraying Spike's affection for Buffy. And if Spike was falling for it then Angel had no defence left.

He was still trying to work out if that was a bad thing.

"I had to, if I didn't Faith and I would've been arrested."

Angel's eyes shot and finally, gut wrenchingly, met the pools of absolute green beauty masquerading as her eyes. He wanted to say something beautiful, reel off a Shakespearean sonnet or some other epic poem. Instead he came out with: "Arrested? What for?"

Confusion shot across Buffy's features, and Angel wanted to go to her, wanted to soothe them all out and have everything be okay again. Instead the tiniest pinprick of light in the corner of his vision caught his eye. Imperceptibly he turned a little to catch a proper glance of its source.

Fuck, scrawled across his mind in big flashing blue and white letters.

Buffy was talking softly but Angel couldn't seem to take in what she was saying, Spike in turn, seemed to be suffering from the same problem his eyes fixed tightly behind Angel's head he raised his hands nervously, a half-finished fag dropping from the corner of his lips to scatter it's ash all over the floor.

"Er, I don't want to alarm anyone," Spike said, kicking Buffy in the leg to get her attention, "but we seem to have company."

Angel watched as Buffy's eyes widened and her hands shot up in the air, slowly, resignedly, Angel did the same, spinning on his toe to face the armed cops he knew were there.

"Afternoon." Angel said politely.

The walk to the cells was intensely familiar and Buffy resisted the urge to sigh, trying to keep her dirty fingerprinted hands as far away from her hard-fought for expensive clothes as possible. There were already three people in the communal cell already, violent gang members having taken up every free cell Buffy was being tossed in with the minor dispute boys. Two men in sharp suits glared at each from across the cell, torn Gucci sleeves and busted eyes filling Buffy's imagination with boardroom scuffles and stockholder bust-ups. The third was a woman, small and petite she was barely old enough to pass as twenty-one. She was sat cross-legged in the centre of one of the three benches her head slung right back, staring up like she was in the Sistine chapel instead of the county lock-up. The girl's arms sat so loosely against her lap with her wrists pointed upward at such an odd angle that she could've been the artfully placed dead, or some strange piece of living art.

All things considered, Buffy was pretty confident she was just a junked up druggie. But for the absolute relaxedness of her pose – that way she hadn't even seemed to note their presence - Buffy almost wished she could have a bit of that serenity, wished she could have crossed that line into oblivion.

Instead she had Angel and Spike. Bitching like prom queens.

"I told you a million times, it wasn't fucking me!" Spike was shoved right up in Angel's grill and bristling with anger but Angel was having none of it, standing his ground with alpha-male-older-brother seeping out of his every pore.

"You really expect me to believe that some unknown person just 'happened' to find half a dozen stolen paintings in my gallery, Spike, and it had not a thing to do with you."

Spike was fuming, well past melting point, more angry than the time his wacky girlfriend Dru had proclaimed her eternal love for Angel right while… Buffy fought back a smile, Spike had busted in on herself and Angel, barely even a sheet tucked round his waist and tried to murder her boyfriend. A frown wrinkled her forehead, Faith didn't like it when she talked about Sunnydale too much, and she'd forgotten just how much the mis-matched brothers had hated each other, and the absolute violence of their animosity.

Angel had backed away a little, letting Spike rant on his own, maybe he didn't want them to come to physical blows whilst under the beady eyes of Sunnydale's least fine cops. Knowing Angel he was probably just fed up with it, backing away because Spike never would.

"You all right… Joan?" Buffy was so buried in her thoughts she barely heard the question, let alone notice the concerned look Angel was giving her, so that it took her a long moment to remember that she was Joan.

"Oh… I'm fine."

Angel glanced up at the security camera in the corner of the room, and hesitantly took the few steps between herself and where he had been standing previously. He stood now mere inches from her form, so close she could smell him - full of fresh soap and that musky smell that was just his, without definition. Closer than he'd been in six, long aching years. She hadn't been alone for all that time, but still - always she would have given whatever man was currently between her thighs just for this unspoken closeness. When she didn't push him away he folded her up in his limbs, both arms wrapped right around her and over the top of her own pinning her in his embrace. His head was in her hair, nuzzling her neck like it was his ticket out of there. She felt what she could move of her arms wrapping back around him, the warmth of his muscle, less defined than it had been, but still so beautiful.

"What's with the name?" He muttered, barely audible with his lips hovering just below Buffy's ear, and his words helped Buffy's heart sink back inside her chest. He didn't want anyone else to hear what they were saying, that was all.

"I'll tell you later." Tensed up, and stressed, and full of sudden pain that she had no idea how to explain Buffy drew away, her hands dropping, but she couldn't seem to let them go totally and just let them rest on his hips instead. Angel did the same and she could feel his dark eyes on her, searching for contact -

The sunken pale face of the other woman was shoved abruptly in between them, "where's the herd of golden oxen?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Four**

Sunnydale, California  
Seven Years Before The Auction

_Spike, it turned out, was a skinny, arrogant, and incredibly amusing drunken Englishman. Currently he was standing on top of the antique coffee table in his dad's mansion reading out some really god-awful poetry to the flattering adoration of most of the female population of the senior class._

"That one was for Dru!" He finished, taking a bow and winking at an eccentric looking girl with dark hair and wearing what appeared to be an antique nightie. Hoping down from the table to receive hugs, kisses and charcoal black halloween roses from his enraptured audience, Spike apparently hadn't noticed that the host of the party had disappeared hours before.

Buffy had.

It wasn't that the two were joined at the hip (although that was admittedly a more than occasional factor of their relationship) but it seemed unusual that Angel, fussy as he was, wasn't hanging around to witness the destruction of his annoyingly anal dad's house. Downing a shooter from a passing tray, Buffy excused herself from where Xander had been using fish sticks to re-enact the entire plot of The Mummy to his own little crowd of female spectators and headed into the dark hallways of the insanely huge house Angel lived in. She'd only been there once or twice, and she was grateful to know, as had happened previously, his dad wasn't home and she ran no risk of running into him. Because much as Angel told her he wouldn't care if his dad disapproved Buffy had no particular desire to put that to the test. 

Slipping through the dark halls to the servants' stairs at the back of the house, Buffy put every bit of her disreputable past into practice as she slunk up the stairs and up to Angel's room.

Knocking quietly on the dark wood door she waited for the door to swing inwards before she followed the skulking form of her boyfriend inside. "Hey," she murmured, quickly finding his bed in the darkness and crawling up its length to curl up next to him on it.

"Hey." He pressed a gentle kiss against her lips before wrapping her in his arms and pulling her closer.

Smiling into his shirt, Buffy started her own trail of sweet butterfly kisses along his collarbone. "Why aren't you at the party?" She exhaled against his skin as his breath hitched beside her.

"It didn't-," he sighed again, pulling her up his body to delve his tongue between her lips, "-seem that important."

Buffy's grin got wider, and she hid it in kisses while one hot hand started loosening his shirt buttons. "Wasn't without you." She finished; moving back down along his throat she pressed hungry kisses against his burning skin, and moved lower and lower down his chest.

"God," he breathed, curving into her touch, "I can't believe how much I love you," his voice hitched and she could feel air rattling into his lungs as he lost control, "no matter what my dad says…"

Buffy stopped.

"What did he say?" She demanded, Angel's eyes flew open surveying her tousled form in the dim she made a fabulous sight: straddling his waist with her palms laid out flat against his heaving chest.

"I-" He sighed, "any chance you can forget I said that?"

"Not one." Buffy's eyes flashed angrily. "Now, what did he say?"

Angel sat up, wrapping himself around Buffy so she was crushed against his bare chest he pressed kisses against her cheeks and eyelids, hands in her hair and eyes half-closed, as if he didn't want her to see what was there. "Someone showed him your record." He finally admitted, "and he told me his disapproves."

Buffy froze, semi-catatonic in his embrace.

"Buffy, I don't care! I've only got a couple of months until I graduate, and he can't control me." He forced her face up so their eyes met, "I love you. I'm not going anywhere, I swear."

Even against the nagging core of doubt Buffy always had around Angel, the one that demanded what it was she had done to get this lucky, even against that, relief flooded through Buffy's tense form and she collapsed happily into Angel arms. They were gone in moments, lost in kisses and skin and –

"ANGEL!"

Peeling herself off Angel's chest Buffy frowned at her lover. "What the hell is going on?"

"I don't know," sliding out from underneath her, Angel chucked Buffy a shirt and pulled his pants back on just in time for the door to crash open. Spike, bleached blonde and completely ignoring Buffy and Angel's current state of undress grabbed Angel by the arm and pulled him out toward the door.

"Some psycho just turned up –" he hurriedly explained as Buffy quickly tugged on the rest of her clothes and the pair of them followed him down the corridor. "- She's screaming bloody murder about her daughter not being at cheerleader practice."

Buffy frowned. "I can't hear anything."

Angel glanced at Spike and grimly nodded, "call the cops." Angel told him before he turned on Buffy, "stay up here with Spike."

"No way," she shot back, "if that's Mrs Madison-" Spike was about to cut in but Buffy waved him off, "-Amy's mom, then you're going to need all the help you can get, especially if she's seen Michael."

A beat passed before all three of them were pelting down the hallway.

**Sunnydale, California  
Three Days Before The Auction**

"Where." She repeated coldly, "Is the herd of golden oxen?"

Buffy searched her very blank mind for something appropriate to say. All she could come up with was: "Wah?"

Angel's grip tightened around her waist and he pulled her that fraction closer, she would have wondered why he was doing it, keeping up so false a pretence, but the girl had caught her absolute attention. It seemed like she ought to sway, or fidget or do anything besides stand absolutely stock still, eyes staring piercingly, horribly, straight through the pair of them and at something past them.

"Are you okay, ma'am?"

For some reason Angel still hadn't let go of Buffy, but even his reluctant attention was on the woman now. She was not so pretty as Buffy had first thought, the drug use having bought a hardness to her face, too pale against her dark matted mess of her hair. Just say no, Buffy thought wryly.

"Where –" the woman started again, stalling suddenly she blinked, half stepping backward and glancing around the room nervously. "Wha- where am I?"

"You're in a police cell, love," it was Spike, apparently calmer, he was drawing on another of his interminable supply of cigarettes and had come closer, peering at the skittery woman. "Feelin' okay, then?"

She barely glanced at him, a discrete shake in his direction.

"Hey!" Spike was yelling out the bars of the cell, "Lady needs some help here!"

Cold air swept past Buffy and it took her a moment to realise it was because Angel had finally moved. He was gingerly stepping around the woman, leading her back to the bench while Buffy and the two silent businessmen watched in abject fascination. Buffy had seen a lot of banged up crooks in her time and a lot of drug addicts too, though not so many as Faith would have claimed, but this was something else from either. This was, in it's small basic form, emotional nothingness. It was fascinating… in bare moments it would be over, everything this girl was, from her name to the last guy that screwed her up would flash through her subconscious, a tsunami of history that would shove her back into her proper place in life. But now… it was that eerie feeling you get watching a certain car crawl down the street, or a particular passer-by that catches your eye, when you know, absolutely, and without any claim to psychic ability, that they are completely fucked. But for now, for now…

"Spike." The girl had started shaking violently Angel knelt behind her, shoving himself between her and the bars, and wincing every time she slammed a bit of her skinny form into him.

"She's going into shock or something, could you hurry the fuck up please!" Spike was yelling again, there were calm footsteps, 'make 'em sweat' Buffy could imagine the older pair of shoes saying to the younger as they sauntered down the halls 'make 'em come to you, make 'em think they need you'

She stopped as soon as she had started, sweat pouring off her pallid features, anxiously Angel pressed the back of his palm against her forehead. "She's freezing, Buffy –"

Buffy was there already, taking off her shirt she helped Angel pull it over the girl's tiny and barely conscious form, Angel was whispering the whole time, demanding the girl's attention. The girl's eyes snapped open, five inches from Buffy's face and for the first time, appearing to actually see.

"Buffy."

Buffy blinked.

"Buffy."

It wasn't Angel or Spike speaking. It was her, the girl. Amy. Realisation slowly dawned, the quiet girl with the goth boyfriend, she used to hang out with Willow sometimes at school, and then there'd been all that fuss with her mom and… a few years after that Buffy had left as well, and she hadn't much thought of this sometimes-friend since she had.

"I'm not Buffy." She found herself saying, hating herself even as she did it.

Amy stared back at her. "No." She finally said, after long drawn out moments. "I guess you're not." She switched tack, "got any fairy dust then?"

Buffy could see Angel's stoic locked face out of the corner of her eye, and shame bit at her every nerve. "No."

There was a rap on the cell bars. "What happened?" A brisk skinny man and a younger Hispanic woman both in uniform, both eyeing Amy's semi-awake form distastefully.

Silence filled the cell like a big marshmallow of doom.

Angel, eventually, took the role of the adult. "She's in withdrawal."

"What drug?" The woman shot back as soon as the fairly obvious answer had been given.

Angel shrugged. "She said something about fairy dust."

The cops both balked, frowning slightly and glancing at each other. Slowly, Buffy realised that they had no idea what fairy dust was.

"It's a sort of powdered LSD," every eye was on Buffy, "laced with cocaine."

The woman had latched her eyes on her now, Amy apparently forgotten. "You dealing?"

"No." There didn't seem much point in elaborating; they'd believe her or they wouldn't. Unless… "I work at the high school, guidance councillor, they sent me to a seminar about drugs."

The female cop smiled lazily, and Buffy realised, with weary annoyance, that this woman was a lot better at her job than everyone else in this mockable jail. "So how come you're in jail? School guidance councillor, doesn't seem quite appropriate."

"I don't know." Buffy carefully kept a clipped irritated note in her voice, that tone that teachers used when they wanted to make you feel like a complete fool. "I've just moved here, so I went to the Art Gallery to make some inquiries about some paintings for my apartment and was arrested for forgery." Icily she added, "I was not aware that witnesses to arrests needed to be kept in cells."

"Oh." The older cop shuffled around a bit. "We'll have a look at your paperwork, ma'am, make sure it's necessary for you to be here."

"Could I request that you do something for this poor woman as well, please? She should be in hospital." Polite, but authoritative. Not a bad acting job. She could just feel Angel assessing her performance, wondering if she ever lied to him, and about what. She wanted to shake him and kiss him and tell him she never would, that she never could lie around him, because he always knew. She wanted to tell him how much she had loved that about him. Instead she kept her face straight as a die and watched as the two cops bowed and scrapped in their own, cryptic way, bracing the weight of Amy between them as they helped her out.

"Joan Hospers?"

Buffy nodded, "that's me," had slid off her tongue before she had even looked up to see who was addressing her, when she did she had to fight to remain composed. A neatly cropped, once expensive but now worn around the edges suit had slickly covered this Texan from head to toe.

"I'm Lindsey McDonald, I'm going to be your lawyer."

She nodded mutely.

Good God, this cell was like an un-happy days reunion, drugged up and crooked up school friends and now the cop that had chased her out of LA after that hustling incident. LAPD Lindsey disguised as a lawyer. Was that even legal?

"Are they treating you all right?" It was definitely him, even that tiny note of southern drawl in his accent.

"Fine." She managed, somehow, to say.

"They've got no right to hold you, so you're going to be released as soon as I can sort out the paperwork."

Buffy nodded again, feeling like one of those stupid nodding dog car toys. "Thanks." She seemed to be talking completely independently of her confused, tired brain, "what about Angel and Spike?"

Stepping closer to the cell bars, Lindsey glanced at the brothers, still sulking, at the opposite side of the cell. "You know these guys? The report said you were just a customer."

Buffy shrugged blithely. "Spend six hours in a cell with someone, feels like you know 'em." The lie was calculated, but risky if Lindsey was undercover. Still she couldn't leave Angel and Spike in here, she owed them that at least.

"I'll see what I can do."

Faith was sprawled out and watching TV in their down-rent little pad on the rough side of town, she hadn't noticed Buffy come in and was tensely flipping through the channels. The apartment wasn't exactly – or actually at all, the address Buffy had put down on her application to work on the school, but it wasn't like she was expecting to ever actually pick up a paycheck.

"Hey, sister."

Faith glanced up, one hand still shovelling popcorn into her mouth as the TV blared in the background. "Hey, what took so long?"

"Got arrested." Buffy shrugged and slumped down next to her twin, dropping her house keys on the coffee-table and rubbing her eyes with one fingerprinty hand.

Faith had dropped the popcorn, and Buffy watched disinterestedly as popcorn kernels flew all over the floor. She was on her feet in a second, grabbing a bag and shoving their sparse belongings into it. "What are you waiting for B," she cried exasperatedly as she headed into her bedroom, "We've gotta book, now."

It was tempting, Buffy considered, to go with Faith's flow. She was the more experienced criminal, the better crook, and in the past Buffy had always bowed to her wisdom. It had been her idea that they leave Sunnydale in the first place and if she said they should leave… well, then they probably should.

Buffy just wasn't going to go.

"Buffy." Faith was hovering in her open doorway, leather trousers trailing out of her hold-all bag and a confused expression written all over her face. "Why aren't you packing?"

"Because I'm not going."

Her sister blinked. "No, seriously, why aren't you packing?"

"Because I'm not going." It was strange, after so long of just going with it, so long with nothing to lose, to be this resolute.

Faith dropped her bag on the floor and Buffy watched as it hit the ground. "Buffy. We have a bad history in this town. We burnt the high school down." She stepped closer to Buffy, "We blew up a school, B, and Sunnydale is not the most forgiving town."

"We didn't do anything." Buffy spat back, she was on her feat as well now, pacing toward her dark haired twin. Her other half, both so alike and so very, very different from herself. "And I'm not doing it this time. Spike and Angel are in jail, because of a whole load of forged paintings they had nothing to do with, and I'm not leaving them there. Not this time."

"Of course it's Angel." Faith's lip curled in disgust. "How can you do that, let a guy come between us so easily? They're all shits, you know-"

"No they're not! They went to prison for us!" Buffy grabbed her coat and shoved it back on over her shoulders, feeling the seams rip from her rough handling. "You can leave them there if you want, but I won't do it."

Storming past Faith, Buffy grabbed her own holdall from the cupboard and started haphazardly filling it with the few possessions she'd been carting round the country. Faith had followed her, she knew without looking that she was watching her from the doorway, but she ignored her until she was fully packed, every bit of her life, every bit that was left after leaving the first time and hefted the bag over her shoulder. "Oh," she added as she grabbed the last few things. "The guy that got me out of jail – my lawyer – he was Lindsey McDonald."

Recognition flashed over Faith's features. "The LAPD…"

"If you're gunna run, you have to do it now. I gave them a fake address so you've got time, but…" Buffy smiled shortly. "See you around, okay?"

Then she was gone.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Five**

Sunnydale, California  
Five Years Before The Auction

_Graduation crept closer everyday, and Buffy's mom had insisted that Buffy and the gang report to her residence to make arrangements. After Angel's graduation a year earlier Angel had been kicked out and cut off for refusing to break up with Buffy. He set up on his own and after selling half of his possessions had investing in a slightly run down apartment. It was intensely romantic, and extremely convenient to the point where Buffy's mom complained that she never saw her daughter, and that wasn't supposed to happen until she went to college next year._

Feeling sufficiently guilty Buffy'd left Angel at his apartment studying frantically for his own UC Sunnydale exams and brought all her friends home for a massive trying-on-graduation-outfits session. Willow and Xander were curled up on the sofa in front of the empty fireplace while Joyce waltzed in and out of the room trying on successions of dresses.

"I guess these seems silly," she confided in them, "me being so excited about seeing Buffy graduate, but I honestly never thought it would happen."

"She fought long and hard for that geometry class." Xander added with tongue-in-cheek sageness.

Buffy swept in carrying a bowl full of warm popcorn, "As long as this an insult to Snyder and not to my intelligence, I'm happy."

Willow smiled at her friend, "When have we ever passed up an opportunity to insult Snyder?"

"Hopefully never."

Joyce spun around in her latest flowery frock. "How goes the vote on this one? Xander?"

"Aye?" He hazarded. "I'm here for the popcorn, don't confuse me with clothes."

"I like it." Willow asserted, "It's elegant."

"Very dapper." Buffy confirmed, as her mom's gaze moved along the row of teenagers to seek Buffy's approval.

"Well, now I'm sorted, what are you three going to be wearing?"

"Jeans and a sweater." Xander asserted definitely, and the three females swung the gaze round to him in shock, "It's a combination that got me through every day of my academic career, it seems only right I finish it all off wearing them too."

Joyce gave him a slightly perturbed look that grimly, Buffy realised she pulled all the time. She was way too young to be turning into her mother.

Chimes rang through the house, and the four of them surreptitiously avoided looking at each other, none particularly willing to leave their comfy seats to open the door.

"Oh, hey," Willow finally burst out, "it might be Angel, he said he might come by when I saw him earlier."

"Hey!" Joyce yelled jokily to Buffy's instantly retreating back, "I booked you tonight, he's going to have to fight to take you away!"

Out of breath and giggling at the thought of her six-foot and somewhat towering boyfriend having his ass whooped by her tiny mother, Buffy pulled open the door all ready to tell Angel about her mom.

Instead she was rendered absolutely silent by the sight that befell her. A little taller and rougher around the edges than when she'd seen her last, decked out in a slutty top and skintight jeans was Faith.

Pushing past Faith into the cold outside, Buffy shut the door behind her. "Faith!" She breathed, "We're not supposed to be within twenty thousand feet of each other, what are you doing here?"

Faith shrugged. "Hey, I just wanted to see my twin sis, but if that's not cool, I'll just be going."

She spun on her feet, dark hair flying out around her shoulders as she hopped down the porch steps.

Buffy's heart constricted. She hadn't seen her sister since three years before when a judge had ruled that for the safety of those around them they must be separated. Nobody here even knew she had a twin; her room having been stripped of all but the tiniest tokens of Faith's presence, and every day Buffy had missed her.

"Wait!"

Faith took a couple more steps before she turned around, a little smile playing at the corner of her lips.

"Stay…"

**Sunnydale, California  
Two Days Before The Auction**

Buffy'd rung the old house first and got a forwarding address from the parental unit. They hadn't recognised her voice, but then the Rosenberg's had almost always been highly and unusually relaxed in their parenting style. Quite frankly, Buffy had almost been surprised they remembered that they'd had a kid.

The apartment was in a swish block of flats out near the beach, not close enough to actually have a view of the sea, but close enough to pretend it did and it's cream hallways and strategically arranged potted plants told Buffy quite clearly that Willow must've had more up her sleeve than the computer studies teaching gig at the school. Willow had landed on her feet and Buffy was definitely incredibly happy about that, but her elation had been brief and quickly shoved down by the utter gut-wrenching fear of being rejected by the girl that had once been her best friend and sole confidante. It should have been easy after Angel's earlier unblinking reaction to her presence to be rejected again. But the truth was she hadn't given up on Angel yet, and if she was going to prove that she was different, well then, she had to start at the beginning.

It still took her another fifteen minutes to actually bite the bullet and ring the doorbell.

There were muffled sounds inside, thumps and voices, too low to hear but… Buffy suddenly doubted the whole bite the bullet theory. In fact, ignoring the bullet seemed like a much better plan. Or, you know sidestepping like Neo in the Matrix. Bullet dodging. New speciality for her. Except for some reason her feet weren't moving. They were stuck to the floor like fear itself had hand glued them down.

"Buffy."

Somehow the door had opened without Buffy noticing and Willow was standing there with one hand braced against the door frame and Buffy's name rolling off Willow's lips the way it had so many times before.

"Uh. Hi, Willow. I'm sorry, I know this is really inappropriate…" All her clothes felt really tight and uncomfortable and Buffy felt about as big as a cockroach. "But, uh, could I come in?"

Willow blinked once... before opening the door wider.

*

She hadn't expected to find him here of all places. Willy's was a dive, the clapped out end of everything in Sunnydale where criminals gathered and traded deals. It was definitely an odd place to find an ex-cop lawyer but contrary to all rhyme or reason there was one there anyway. Lindsey McDonald sat at the end of the bar, the other customers giving him a width berth as he downed endless pints of bitter under his Texan hat.

Putting an extra swing into her hips, Faith swaggered toward him, slid onto the stool beside him and gave him her sexiest smile.

There was no reaction at all from the shadow in the hat.

"Willy!" Faith called, and Willy was front and centre in half a moment, lust burning through his eyes. She flashed him a grateful smile when he didn't call her by name. "Bloody Mary."

"As you wish, sweetness."

Flicking through her purse for some money, Faith peeped over its leather case at the man next to her.

"Jeez, it's hot in here, you wanna turn the heat down, Willy?" A nod and, some joke-y conversation with her favourite unscrupulous barman.

Still no reaction from the cowboy.

She was getting pissed off now, she was sexy damn it and she couldn't believe this man was succeeding so heartily in paying her no attention whatsoever. She swapped change with Willy and the Bloody Mary was in her grasp, quietly she sipped at it, grateful for the thick taste of liquor while she thought through her next move. Although, she swiftly pointed out to her subconscious – just in case there were any doubters - it wasn't like she needed the Dutch courage to do what she did next. A vague attempt at getting up from her stool, a loose grip on her drink and swoosh - alcohol pouring all over her cowboy friend.

"Oh god! I'm so sorry!"

He was off his stool finally and trying to sweep away the red rivers that were seeping into his plaid shirt and jeans. They were strong hands, Faith couldn't help noticing, and she bet he knew how to use them too. Willy tossed her a cloth and she was running it along the lines of Lindsey's chest in a moment, whispering, "let me help you," as she did so.

Instead of letting her slide her palm down his, extremely toned - she noted, muscles she felt Lindsey's fist wrapping around her hand, stilling it's path as he breathed deeply into her hair. "It's okay. You don't have to do that."

Her hand was still pinned there. Sticky with alcohol and tomato juice and crushed between his hand and his chest, she could feel his pulse storming along on either side of her palm. "I'm sorry." Faith murmured again, feeling pathetic even as she did it. This wasn't her gig, not normally; Buffy did the helpless doe-faced victim thing. Faith invited guys for a fuck in a closet and gave them a headache for their troubles. So it wasn't, she considered later, her fault entirely that she hadn't realised that the whole racing heart thing wasn't entirely normal. Or that they were standing really close together. Much too close for anyone innocent, and if they had been innocent, the whole third hip thing would probably have confused them a lot.

There was probably something intelligent she was meant to be saying, offering to buy him a drink perhaps, they'd chat for a while and then swap numbers. But she was still, above all heart-racing nervousness, absolutely Faith. So instead of following the carefully thought out plan she had devised earlier Faith said: "Wanna go somewhere?"

"Hell yeah." He breathed in her ear.

*

The two roughed up businessmen finally made parole nearly five hours after Buffy Summers had walked free from the Sunnydale precinct. It was another hour before Spike deigned to speak to Angel.

"Got any fags?"

Angel rolled his eyes. "No and stop saying fags, you're not in England anymore."

Spike leaned back against the wall of the cell his fist bouncing up and down against one of his knees like he was shaking the ash off a cigarette. "So what, I like the word fags, it's got a nice sound to it."

Slumping forward Angel put his head in his hands. "I can't believe I'm in jail with you - yet again - and all you can talk about is sodding fags."

"Sodding." Spike echoed back. "Sounds like you've been spending some time in the mother-country and all mate."

Angel didn't answer, instead he tried to remember exactly how his life had got turned upside down – Buffy had been there, she always seemed to be when something either extremely wonderful or supremely shitty happened to him. Yet somehow, he got the feeling it hadn't had a whole lot to do with her. Buffy'd just been there, and then there'd been masses of cops and six stolen paintings he swore to God he'd never seen before. The police had been less than convinced, frankly if he'd been them he wouldn't believe them either, it just didn't make the prospect of going to prison – again – in any way less awful.

"Angie?"

Angel huffed under the hands that covered his face. "What?"

"You never asked about goldilocks."

Angel blinked, "Wha-" Oh, Buffy. Of course. "I don't really care."

Spike burst out laughing and Angel was on his feet, eyes flashing darkly at Spike in warning to shut the hell up. Of course, that might've been a less futile gesture if Spike had any concept whatsoever of backing down, and now he knew he had Angel riled… well. It was extremely unlikely he was ever going to stop.

"You." Spike spat out, hilarity dancing across his features. "Don't care – oh sweet Jesus that's brilliant – I should've thought of that one when you spent two years moping in a basement-"

"I wasn't moping. I was painting, and it was only eighteen months." Angel protested pointlessly, but it only seemed to redouble Spike's enjoyment. "Oh, for fuck's sake, fine, I care, tell me how you found her if that's what's got you so bloody excited."

Put out that Angel had given in so easily, Spike wandered up and down the cell a couple of times, if laughing at him wasn't going to annoy him, he'd just have to yank up the suspense. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Angel virtually biting his lip to resist having a go at him. Angel knew Spike could see his frustration, he just, as Spike had so gently pointed at, didn't care a whole lot about how he looked, not when Buffy was around.

Apparently having had enough of all his pacing, Spike took a seat on the bench opposite Angel, legs splayed wide and one hand playing with the plastic safety flame cigarette lighter the guard had given him. The alcohol inside slid from end to end shifting the centre of gravity as it did so, and providing Spike with the amusing (at least on the scale of having spent twelve hours in a cell amusing-ness) sensation of having the lighter twirl between his fingers.

At least, that's what Angel thought was going through Spike's mind. In reality, Angel considered, it was probably more the external signs of an internal struggle between the enjoyment Spike got from watching Angel fret while he waited for news about Buffy, and the potential for entertainment from Angel's reaction to whatever the news was.

"She broke in."

Angel hadn't expected Spike to speak so soon, or so simply, or frankly to be saying that of all things. Angel was not a fool, Buffy had not gotten kicked out of her old school for being too loving and attentive a student. She'd burnt the gymnasium down. And been arrested for theft. In fact, for a sixteen year old with every advantage in the world, she had an impressively long record. When she'd come to Sunnydale she hadn't stopped being who she was when she'd been ceremoniously kicked out of the charred remains of Hemery High. Buffy had not, if he was going to be blunt, stopped being a crook.

But much after she had arrived, after they had started their tempestuous affair and before she'd fled from Sunnydale: she had stopped robbing people. And unless her every action for two years had been a lie, one as brilliant and as devious as those she had fed the cops earlier, then Buffy could not possibly have broken into his gallery. It was inconceivable.

Spike did not, and never would, hold the exalted place in Angel's heart that Buffy did. Spike frequently and regularly did everything he could to hurt Angel, and it should've been easy to blame the report on Buffy's abnormality in behaviour on a fallacy from Spike. But more than anything else Angel knew Spike just didn't lie, not about things like this, because Spike knew the truth hurt more.

"Angelus and William Wilkins?"

Angel didn't look up, there didn't seem to be a whole lot of point.

"That's us."

"You made bail."

**Chapter Six**

Sunnydale, California  
Five Years Before The Auction

_Mayor Richard Wilkins III was not a calm man. His shrink told him it came of being the third with the same name, added to the fact that the two previous Richard Wilkins had also both been Mayor's, it was a lot to live up to. He should use the suggested relaxation techniques and remember that because he shared a name with his ancestors, it's didn't mean he was them._

Wilkins seriously considered the option, the stress-ball he was currently fiddling with an absolute sign on his commitment, and then fired the psychiatrist before implementing a brutal and public shredding of his reputation beyond repair. Wilkins problem was most definitely not his elder relatives, but his younger ones. From a marriage and an affair Wilkins had two sons of the same age. The previously carefully hidden illegitimate son, William, had bleached his hair blonde changed his name Spike and after coming to town for a brief visit two years before had refused to leave, apparently deciding instead that it would be much more fun to leech Wilkins' hard embezzled cash and ruin his reputation as a family man. His other son Angelus had run off with a rampant criminal from Los Angeles and Wilkins had been forced to cut him off before the press got news of his latest amore.

He'd hoped, at least, after several careful conversations with the girl's mother that he could convince Mrs Summers to send her daughter to the east coast for college. Logically their kids would break up after the inevitable strain of being apart and Angelus could be reunited with the family and packed off to Harvard where he was supposed to be. Instead the tiny blonde wretch Angelus had his heart set on so deeply had determined to stay in Sunnydale with Angelus and there was not a blessed chance in hell of convincing either of them otherwise.

There was a gentle knock on the door of his office.

Yes, those two were quite definitely the cause of all of Richard Wilkins III's lack of calm, without any trace of doubt.

"Come in." he sighed, tossing the stress-ball into the trash as his assistant Allan nervously crept into the room. "Don't be so shy, Allan, come closer."

"Yes." The boy gulped against his ill-fitting collar. "Thank you, sir."

Wilkins smiled reassuringly as he cradled his fingers together in front of him. "What can I do for you, Allan?"

Allan nodded anxiously, "well, uh, you asked me to keep a track of your sons and, uh, something has come up."

Wilkins sighed. "Which one?"

"Uh," Allan glanced at the file in front of him, "Angelus, sir."

He took the file from Allan, "What happened?"

"He was, um, he was seen buying an engagement ring two days ago, sir."

Silence yawned between the two of them as Wilkins carefully flicked through the sheaths of black and white photos. It was certainly Angelus in the jewellery store and later there were shots of him elsewhere with William and the girl too. He passed over a selection of the couple kissing. The thought of what was going on turned his stomach enough; he didn't want to see pictures.

"There's something else, sir."

Wilkins kept flipping through the photos.

With no interruption Allan ploughed onward, "Buffy Summers, Angelus's g-"

"I know who she is, keep going, Allan"

"She has a sister, one she's not legally allowed to be around."

"I know this." Wilkins huffed impatiently.

"She's in town, sir, the two of them have been seen together."

He'd reached those photos now; the sister was not much like her Buffy, dark against Buffy's lightness. Both, their records assured him, just as bad as each other. "Does Angelus know?"

"We don't think so."

The photos kept moving under Wilkins fingers, and oh so calmingly, tiny pieces of an idea began to fall into place.

"Do you have any children, Allan?"

Allan was startled by the question and he fumbled over his words as he tried to react. "Wha- um, No, Mayor Wilkins, sir, I don't have any children."

Wilkins tried to smile reassuringly as he flipped the folder shut and sat back in his chair. "When you do you'll understand, you just have to do what's best for them. Get me Principal Snyder on the phone."

**Sunnydale, California  
Day Of The Auction**

Buffy tried not to tense up as Principal Snyder stalked toward her across the confettied up, sweat scented, gymnasium of Sunnydale High School.

"Rosenberg!" He snapped, "Where's the delivery guy? The paintings aren't here yet, and I warn you now, Rosenberg, if anything goes wrong tonight I'll hold you personally responsible."

Buffy marvelled at Willow's ability to stand tall in the face of Snyder's overwhelmingly disturbing anger. Age had done little for his looks, taking what was left of his hair and adding a few more wrinkles, but almost in defiance for every hair lost he appeared to have become substantially more aggressive and scary than Buffy remembered him being.

"He'll be here at any moment." Willow reassured him, patting him nervously on the shoulder.

"He'd better." And with that he stomped off to terrorise the huddle of poor students that had been roped into serving refreshments.

Sneaking over to Willow's side Buffy handed her a glass of punch. Taking a sip she winked at Willow over the rim. "I spiced it up a little bit for you."

Cautiously Willow tasted the punch, before smiling gratefully. "Thanks, Bu-Joan." She glanced around nervously. "Sorry."

Buffy nodded, "it's okay, Snyder's got everyone so stressed out I don't think anybody will notice." Feeling tense in the stiff clothing Willow had lent her for the occasion Buffy was more than a little nervous about what might happen tonight. "Are you okay?"

Willow nodded. "Absolutely… not." She shot Buffy another nervous glance. "I'll be okay, honestly."

"Joan Hospers, I believe?"

Frowning, Buffy turned to see who was addressing her and, completely unable to stop herself dropped her plastic cup into Willow's hands to give the aging man in front of her a hug.

"Giles!" She squealed, "I can't believe you made it."

Hugging her tightly in return Giles buried his hand in Buffy's hair. "I wouldn't have missed this for the world, Buffy."

Regretfully breaking their embrace, Buffy smiled up at her favourite mentor. "Thanks so much for being here."

He nodded, "you are absolutely welcome."

*

"Are you okay?" Lindsey rubbed his hands up and down her arms reassuringly. "You seem kind of stressed."

To say Faith was stressed was an understatement. In fact climbing up the walls terrified seemed far more appropriate. However, given that Lindsey had not a blessed clue of why she was so damned afraid to be in this school, Faith just shook her head and laughed. "I'm fine, honestly. It's just a little cold in here."

"Sure?"

She smiled, loving the concern, "absolutely."

A few steps more and they were inside the gymnasium, Faith spotted Buffy instantly talking to a red haired woman and a silver haired man, quick to respond she carefully steered Lindsey away from them and towards the refreshments table.

"So this is where you work."

Faith laughed, "Not quite, but yeah, flipping road kill for the bratlings lunch is my life."

"What a coincidence." Lindsey echoed, passing Faith a glass of punch, "Me too."

"Come on," she wheedled, "public defence law, it can't be so bad."

Lindsey shrugged. "I wasn't always a lawyer."

"Really?" tension coursed through Faith's belly, was this where he revealed he recognised her after all, and everything was a lie? Somehow she managed to let out a flirty, "were you a cowboy in another life?" at the same time as a portly couple shoved past her in search of drinks, Grabbing her arm to steady her, Lindsey pinned her with his gaze and his grip.

"Just this one." He murmured.

The couple passed, and just as abruptly as he'd grabbed her Lindsey let go of her arm letting it flop uselessly to her side. "Actually," he said carefully, "I used to be a cop for the LAPD."

Adrenalin wove its way back through Faith's veins screaming at her to run before he realised who she was, if he hadn't already. But she had to stay, he had to be here. "Why did you give that up then?"

He shrugged casually, "One day I decided that maybe the law wasn't flexible enough, and if I couldn't change that as a man of the law I might be able to do it as a lawyer."

Faith couldn't help the smile that played at the corner of her lips. "That's it?" She prodded, "you just decided one day?"

He smirked back at her, Cheshire cat in full appearance. "Well," he drawled, "just before I decided that an incredibly beautiful girl lifted my wallet. It didn't seem quite right that she should go to jail, I'm sure she had her reasons."

Faith couldn't help the lazy beam that spread across her face. He knew god damn it! He'd known this whole time that it was her, and sweet Jesus, her pulse sped uncontrollably, why hadn't he said, or marched her into a police station, or… "I'm sure she did." She choked out, and downed her punch in one go, wishing absolutely that it had alcohol in it, because frankly, she could really do with some.

*

Angel carefully rearranged his suit jacket; he'd carefully chosen one of his flashier numbers, not he assured himself, because he was anxious about how Buffy saw him, but merely because – he was struggling to think of any other reason.

"Is dad gunna be in the house tonight?" Spike grumped as he heaved huge canvases out of the back of the delivery truck.

Well, actually, annoying his pompous father with how well he'd done since they'd parted on less than amicable terms was a pretty good reason too.

"He's doing the speeches." Bending down to peer into the wing mirror of the truck, Angel checked out his reflection poking at his spiky hair nervously.

There was a thump and Angel closed his eyes and whispered a silent prayer that Spike hadn't just broken anything too expensive.

"No, fucking, way, peaches!" Spike was on full tilt glower mode, storming around from the back of the van, his trench coat twirling a round him over the suit Angel had forced him into. "I will wear this sodding suit, I will be nice to Buffy and I will do as you tell me for one bloody night only. But I will not listen to one of dad's truly god-damn awful twenty minute speeches about how fucking amazing he is."

Angel shrugged. "So go for a fag when he starts talking and don't came back for twenty minutes."

"I-" Spike paused. "Actually, that's a pretty good idea."

Angel nodded in thanks for the guarded compliment. "Are all the paintings out?"

"Yeah."

Angel took one last deep breath and stepped over the threshold of school property for the first time in five years. "Then let's get this show on the road."

**Chapter Seven**

The Desert, roughly an hour outside of Sunnydale, well, possibly; California  
Five Years Before The Auction

_It was not a good thing, Faith considered, to have been grabbed by two men in suits with those ear plug wire things disappearing down their overly muscular necks, shoved in a car and driven round in circles for nearly an hour._

In fact, as far as her great trashy movie knowledge had informed her, this sort of behaviour was normally what immediately preceded being found dead in a ditch with half your fingers missing and a big note saying 'I murdered myself and then threw my body out of a moving vehicle, honest chief-copper-boss-person' It wasn't really surprising then that she was already plotting her fifth escape attempt, the first four admittedly hadn't gone so well, hence the fact that as well being accompanied in the back of the car by two of the thugs with hand-guns pointed quite firmly at her head, she also had her handcuffed wrists tied to the seat in front of her. It wasn't the greatest starting position for escape, but anything was possible.

When the car ground to a halt a few minutes later, Faith finally started to panic. Car stoppage was bad, car stoppage meant you were about to meet the head mobster and have your head blown off with a sawn off shotgun, and here Faith was quite clear. She definitely did not want that to happen.

The driver stepped out of the car and a moment later she was being freed from her restraints (the ones that tied her to the car at least) and dragged outside. Someone whacked her in the back of the legs and she dropped to her knees in the sand, cursing movies for their accuracy. If she hadn't seen so many she might be under some delusion she could still escape, but she knew with aching finality that was already too damn late.

Glancing around at the last bit of this fine earth she was ever going to get to see – a couple of boulders and a lot of sand, really thrilling view there – and at the people that crowded around her, mostly men and all heavily armed. A few minutes later another car drew up, black and with no plates. The driver stepped out to open the backdoor, and Faith watched transfixed as a middle-aged man emerged from the confines of the car.

Disgustedly he turned his nose up at their rural location dusting lint or sand or something off the sleeves of his overcoat as he stepped toward Faith.

It took him a bone-crunchingly slow time to make the short walk to where Faith was huddled, and he crouched beside her, carefully balancing on the balls of his feet so that his neatly cut clothes didn't touch the dirt.

"Holy fuck!" Faith yelped, unable to contain herself, "Aren't you like the mayor or something?" Someone whacked her in the back of the head and she fell face first into the dirt. Struggling, spitting out sand and dirt, and possibly a fair bit of blood, Faith struggled back up to her knees.

The guy – the mayor – she corrected herself, she was sure of it, ignored her outburst. "Faith Summers?"

She thought about lying or coming up with some hackneyed bit of 'who wants to know'.

She felt the butt of a rifle pressing gently against the back of her neck and she nodded emphatically. "Yup. Me. Definitely me."

"Well, now," the mayor smiled disarmingly, "I just knew it was you." He nodded at something above her head and suddenly someone was pulling her up to her feet and dusting her off. Completely disorientated she watched as the mayor rose as well and some attendants ran up to pat his brow.

Films, she considered, did not normally go this way.

"I hope you don't mind about the boys," the mayor gestured at the wealth of heavily armed thugs surrounding them as a petite woman fussed over his hair, "I just wanted to make it clear that it is absolutely within my power to have you killed."

Right. Not such a great turn of events then. "Okay." She muttered, "Very clear. Really. Incredibly clear, in fact," she stepped nervously backwards, "I could do with a little less clarity, you know what I'm saying?"

The mayor smiled and there was a hand on her shoulder, not entirely gently holding her in place. "Currently, Faith, you are in violation of a court-order banning you from being within twenty-thousand feet of your sister."

Faith laughed nervously. "Yeah, you got me. Sorry, boss, I'll be on my way out of town now."

He shook his head, letting out his own short chortle. "You misunderstand, I don't want you to leave. In fact, if you do, breaking your court order will suddenly seem like a very small problem. Do you understand?"

Faith gulped visibly. "Yes, sir."

"Instead I'd like you to do a little something for me, help me solve a little problem of my own." The mayor smiled winningly. "Would you like to help me?"

Faith thought about how hard Buffy had been trying to live a normal life, and the recent decision of her own that she would try to make her own clean break. Maybe then, Buffy had argued, they could get the stupid court order lifted and actually be allowed to spend time together without them both getting arrested. Faith desperately and absolutely wanted to be able to say no to this son of a bitch politician that she just knew was going to ask her to do something to ruin all her plans… and she also knew that she had two sawn off shotguns pressed against her back.

Closing her eyes Faith drew in a ragged breath and made her choice.

What else could she do?

**Sunnydale, California  
Day Of The Auction**

If absolute non-reaction hadn't been absolutely necessary Angel would have died laughing at the expression of his father's face as Spike and Angel burst through the main doors of the gymnasium in the middle of his speech, gallery caretakers trailing in their wake under the weight of six huge canvases.

"Ladies and gentleman," Spike cried, putting on his best stiff upper lip accent to wow the parent teacher audience gathered around the glammed up gymnasium in their winter finest. "You came here to support your school and put a bit of pride back into this community." The crowd gathered at the merest sound of his voice, enraptured in the way only Spike seemed to be able to pull off, even when he was still wearing his battered leather coat over an extremely expensive suit. Leaving Angel to direct the caretakers, Spike was on the stage in a matter or mere moments.

Clapping his father on the shoulder, Spike shot him a cheeky grin and in a stage whisper to the audience firmly prodded the wounded pride of the mayor. "Thought you were gunna have to sit through another one of his speeches didn't you? Well Mayor Wilkins III here, my dear old da, dontcha know," there was a ripple of whispered conversation through the audience, "he was hiding me up his sleeve for this very occasion."

"Everybody knows this town has had rough times," there were some scattered 'hell, yeah's' throughout the throng and Spike waved them off. "What Wilkins here wants to tell you all is that the time for speech making is well and truly over, instead now is the time for choices. And in respect of that, the mayor has very kindly put his money where his mouth is." There were a couple more cheers now, the band of people hanging on Spike's every word. "He has bought six fabulous one of a kind paintings and they will be joining the auction here tonight!" There was a ripple of applause, "Hey, Angel, let's show everyone the goods."

Angel nodded in acquiescence to Spike's request before turning to the motley crew or caretakers. "Right guys," Angel whispered as quietly as he could in a mock-up of Spike's rough accent, "let's give 'em a damn good show."

Grinning to themselves the assorted caretakers each took their place beside each canvas, counted to three and went to work. They pulled down the long strips of fabric covering each painting and as canvas after canvas was revealed the smattering of applause doubled, trebled, quadrupled, lifted the roof. "That's right, ladies and gentleman," Spike yelled into the mic, "what you are looking at are genuine paintings by Van Gogh, Picasso, Mondrian, Friedrich, Constable and Hopper."

The crowd went wild again so that Spike had to shout into the microphone to finally regain control of the horde. "Now, I assure you, these paintings are not fakes – they are one of a kind originals, I've got all the paperwork here if you'd like to look at it before we begin the auction, it's all signed in the mayor's own hand, with the proper consent of all the relevant artist's foundations. You will never, I repeat never get a chance to buy from these kind of artists, at these kind of prices, ever again."

Angel, out of the public view off to the right of the paintings, tried to push past the insanely happy crowd and search out his father and Snyder with his eyes. Spotting them off in one corner, Angel was forced to bite his lip to stop himself from dancing with glee. It wasn't that he was a vengeful person, but seeing with his own first hand vision Mayor Richard Wilkins III, in a state of absolutely catatonic panic struck him as more than a little… justified.

"Enjoying yourself?"

Angel glanced over at his companion and shot him a rueful smile. "Maybe a little." He nodded over at the paintings, "spotted the difference yet?"

Giles smiled wryly. "Oh yes. I wasn't an Art History major for nothing you know." Turning to face Angel he casually ran one hand through his hair and checked their surroundings with a practiced eye. "Where did you get such beautiful forgeries, Angel?"

Angel tried to rearrange his face in something resembling a penitent expression. "I may have borrowed yours."

Angel didn't need to look at Giles to see the raised eyebrow. "You may have?" Giles echoed.

"I may have definitely done so. Yes."

Giles laughed and breaking their casual code he wrapped Angel in a hug, slapping his back in what he hoped was a vaguely manly manner. "This is a good thing you're doing, Angel, don't ever feel guilty."

"I'm always good, and I never feel guilty." Angel lied blithely, shrugging off Giles' words. "Besides, it was Buffy, I couldn't not. You should know that."

Giles nodded. "Oh, better than anyone I suspect. I remember when you first started taking art lessons; you wouldn't draw anything but her. Took me months to convince you to try something in a bowl of fruit, and even then you always somehow managed to sneak her in somehow."

Angel laughed, and for the first time in years it felt clean to do so, felt healthy and normal. "Enough about me, how was the flight?"

*

Squirreled away at the back of the crowd, Buffy peeped over her auction program to stare at Angel. "Giles is talking to him." She reported back to Willow, who was disinterestedly taking a look at the assorted outfits passing them by as the mix of staff, parents and teachers took their places in the rows of chairs that now lined the gymnasium. Dressed in their finest the woman fanned themselves with their biding panels while their partners flicked through the handbook wondering desperately how much money they would have at the end of the evening.

Angel looked so incredibly gorgeous, a fantastically cut suit melding to his every line like he'd been born wearing it. The two men were laughing, and she strained to try and hear, unable to stand it anymore she poked Willow, "What do you think he's saying?"

"Who?"

"Angel!" Buffy shot back impatiently.

Willow sat bolt upright in her seat, "that might be the least of your troubles – " Grabbing Buffy's arm she pulled her round to face the corner where Snyder and the mayor were engaged in a heated argument. "What if he withdraws the paintings?"

Buffy shrugged. "It'll never happen. The money's too good, and neither of them can stand to turn down that much cash."

"Are you sure?" Willow hesitated, "maybe I should talk to them. They don't know I'm involved."

"No!" Buffy caught Willow's sleeve before she could leave. "Don't, if you talk to them they'll smell a rat-"

"You'd think they'd been smelling that all the time anyway, what with there own ratty existence." Willow grumbled under her breath.

"Trust me," Buffy smiled winningly. "Everything is going to be fine."

"You totally just jinxed us."

Buffy shrugged. "I'm starting to think that maybe that's not a bad thing."

"What?"

Spike was back on stage rapping the auction hammer against the podium. "Take your seats please, Ladies and Gentleman, the auction is about to begin."

With a self-satisfied smirk Buffy led Willow to two seats at the back of the hall.

"Okay," Spike ventured as the last clatterings and scrapings of chairs died down. "We're going to start with Mrs Gilmore – previously of the PE department," Spike winked into the crowd, "I can see you've still been keeping fit there Mrs Gilmore," and there was a smatter of tittering laughter across the crowd in appreciation. "Mrs Gilmore's silver service! Beautiful piece I think you'll agree," The silver service, from what they could see of it at the back was battered, in many more pieces than it was supposed to be and definitely not silver in colour. "Who'll start me at fifty?"

Silence yawned back at him.

"Come on, warm up those paddles ladies, what about twenty-five? Nice low start."

Buffy pretended to be very interested in the auction as Willow lent over to whisper: "No, seriously, what did you mean?" at her.

Someone in the midst raised their paddle obediently. "Beautiful, love!" Spike cheered, his rough accent peeking through his carefully controlled sales banter in relief at the sight of a bid.

"Joan." Willow muttered loudly.

Half turning to Willow, Buffy fought back a smile. "Wils, unless you want to be in possession of Mrs Gilmore's-" She flicked through the program "'stunning tea-set, complete with dated hallmarks from 1870', I suggest you stop talking."

Put out, Willow flopped back in her seat with her arms across her chest.

The sale of the tea set shuffled on in tiny one-dollar increments. "Okay," Buffy finally ventured under her breath. "It's just that, jinx's got me here. And here I am, with you and Giles back in Sunnydale again-" Buffy broke off uncertainly, "and, I can't see anything bad about any of that. No matter how hard I try."

Buffy glanced over at her friend who was still staring stubbornly into the distance. "Did you hear any of that?"

She turned back to face Buffy "Huh, what?"

Unable to help herself, Buffy laughed. "You're a good friend, Willow."

**Chapter Eight**

Sunnydale, California  
Five Years Before The Auction

_Buffy knew something was horribly wrong as soon as she'd seen Faith at graduation. Their mom didn't know she was here and there were far too many members of staff that knew they weren't allowed near each other for either of their own good. So despite the better part of her judgement, Buffy had whispered a hurried excuse to Willow and slipped up the aisles and toward her sister._

Hurrying away from the courtyard where graduation was taking place Faith led Buffy at random through the twists and turns of the school corridors, running to catch her up, Buffy caught Faith's arm and twisted Faith round to face her. It wasn't exactly Faith that looked back at her. Or it was, but it was the Faith she'd seen just before the firework blew when they were in the gym at Hemery, it was Faith afraid.

"Faith, what's going on? Why are you here?"

Faith seemed to be having trouble breathing, and she was straining to stand as far away from Buffy as she could. "I'm really sorry, B."

"What?" Buffy glanced around the hallway instinctively, nothing, no one. Still, she grabbed Faith's hand and pulled her through the swing doors beside them and into the library. A cursory check told her it was empty. "Why are you so upset? What happened to you?"

Faith shoved her away, stalking towards the stalks angrily. "You never told me about Angel's dad."

Buffy frowned. "They don't really get on-"

"You know," Faith laughed, "I kind of had that figured when he had me at gun-point in the fucking desert!"

"Faith, what-"

"That's the thing though isn't it? It's not your precious Angel that the fucking mayor really doesn't get along with. It's you. You and me, everything we did… wouldn't sit too well in the mayor of Sunnydale's history books now would it?"

"Please," Buffy begged, "I don't understand, just-"

Faith stalked toward Buffy and grabbed her by the shoulders. "He's gong to get rid of you, Buffy, one way or another."

Tears coursed down Buffy's cheeks, but she paid them no heed scrambling instead to answer every seed of doubt Faith nudged inside of her. "It doesn't matter what he does, Angel won't leave me, he swore." Even as she said them Buffy doubted the words. She would do so much for her sister, had done so much, how far could Angel possibly go against his father's will?

"If we don't leave tonight, he'll have us both locked up for violating the court order." Faith pulled Buffy's wet face up to meet hers. "We're eighteen now, that means years in adult prison for arson. And I don't care if you'd rather it went down that way. I won't let you."

"I know." Buffy breathed, burying herself in her sister arm's she sobbed for everything she could have had. Every normal, crime and threat free day she had consumed air, kissed her lover and wished for more of the same. "Oh God," She wept, "I don't want to leave Angel."

Something made a sharp click sound, and even through her grief Buffy could feel something cool, hard and extremely dangerous being pressed into the back of her neck.

"That's a shame." A hideously cheerful voice commented. "Because you're just going to have to get used to it."

Fighting not to hyperventilate, Buffy shuffled away from Faith under the guidance of the man with the gun pointed at her. Mayor Richard Wilkins III stood in front of her, idly running his finger along the work surfaces as an unending number of butch men in dark suits filled past him carrying big wooden crates and dumping them in the middle of the room.

"Now Faith, you didn't exactly live up to your end of the bargain, did you?"

Faith glowered at him, "I would never."

Wilkins shrugged. "I rather thought as much, but still, it would have been fun." He tapped the lid of one of the crates. "These babies," he explained, "are full of explosives." He smiled expectantly at his captive audience as though expecting some kind of reward for his blatant insanity.

"One way or another, Miss Summers, I will get you out of my sons life."

"I won't go." Buffy insisted vehemently.

"Yes. How very original. The thing is, Buffy," he seemed to resent saying her name, like it's very syllables left a bad taste in his mouth. "I can make you leave. And I will."

One of the minions whacked an odd T-shaped stick against Buffy's ribs. Folding in pain Buffy was held upright by two other men while Wilkins marched toward her. "Hold the stick." He insisted.

Faith was shouting but Buffy couldn't hear her, just coughed and straightened up as best she could.

Buffy looked the mayor straight in the heartless eye. "No."

The gun pushed painfully tight against her skull.

Wilkins shrugged. "Fine." Walking away he nodded at two of the men in black who grabbed Buffy's hands and forced them to wrap around the stick. "That's the ignition stick for the explosives. When they investigate the remains of the school they'll find your fingerprints over the charge." Wilkins smiled sweetly, "guess whose going to jail."

"No!" Faith yelled, "You can't fucking do this, you psycho!"

"Really?" The mayor looked oddly put out. "Oh well. I suppose I'll know better next time then. Set the charge, it's time for my speech in a few minutes and I just love speeches."

Glancing back at the struggling pair once more before he left the room the mayor smiled maniacally. "Go to jail or run, but don't come back to this town again."

It seemed like it only took minutes for the explosives to be set, the weird T-Stick thing was used to set the timer on the fuse before being tossed out into the scrub in the window beyond the window. A thickset man opened the window at the back of the library and had the sisters dragged over to it. "You've got three minutes to run, little girls." He whispered to them, before shoving them over the ledge.

A minute after Buffy and Faith had been set free Faith had run back inside and set off the fire alarm.

A minute and half afterwards they retreated from the scrubland unable to find the T-Stick that would condemn them for the one thing they hadn't, for once in their short but interesting lives, actually done.

A minute and three quarters afterwards Spike and Angel ambled through the scrub the join the crowds of confused fire evacuees.

Two minutes afterwards Faith had to drag Buffy, screaming, away from the school and towards the bus station.

Two and a half minutes afterwards Spike picked up an odd looking stick and tossed it to his brother.

Three minutes afterwards the sky exploded orange.

**Sunnydale, California  
Day Of The Auction**

Faith arched uncomfortably against the stiff back of the chair she was perched in. "Good god," she muttered at Lindsey, "If I knew auction's were so long and boring I'd never have bought you here."

"Really?" He raised an eyebrow at her, "and what would we have done instead?"

Faith smile wickedly, scooting closer to him she let the hand that had been resting on his knee slide up his leg. "I have a few suggestions." She whispered as she leaned over to press a hungry kiss against his lips, his hand was sliding up her ribs, resting just underneath her breast as he nipped at her lips.

"Ahem."

Faith crept a few inches away from Lindsey to turn and face the source of the disturbance only to be faced with a pinched-looking elderly grandmother from the row ahead of them, whose spectacles perched on her nose with an eerily school-ma'am like aura. "That is not," she told them firmly, "appropriate behaviour for inside a school gymnasium."

Hesitantly Faith drew further away from Lindsey, completely unable to think of anything to say.

"By any chance," Lindsey saved her, "would your name happen to Mrs Gilmore, Ma'am?"

The woman smiled. "That's me."

"The auctioneer was absolutely right then," Lindsey continued smoothly, "when he commented on your beauty. It is quite remarkable, ma'am."

Mrs Gilmore preened under Lindsey's spotlight, and Faith had to remind herself not to be jealous of the old hag. "Why thank you son, but don't think that means I'm not going to be keeping an eye on you two."

"Oh absolutely ma'am." Moving himself further apart from Faith, Lindsey took Faith's hand in a completely chaste gesture.

"Uh-uh!" Mrs Gilmore chastised, "I want to see five inches of clear air between you two at all times."

Pinned under the old woman's gaze, Faith felt herself shuffling away from her partner with increasing uncertainty about who was in charge of her actions, the five inch rule left her sitting half off the chair she was on and Lindsey uncomfortably close to a skinny man in a tuxedo who couldn't seem to stop fiddling with his shirt sleeves uncontrollably.

"Okay then, let the nice gentleman at the front finish the auction now." Mrs Gilmore swivelled back round in her chair to face the front again, "and don't scratch Fredrick." She chastised over her shoulder. The thin man sat straight up-right, desperately looking around him to try and see where the voice had come from.

Completely shell-shocked Faith glanced over at Lindsey only to see him with his fist shoved in his mouth to try and stop from laughing, face bright red and shaking.

Sneaking closer back to Lindsey, Faith smiled as she settled back into her chair. "Scrap that, I love auctions."

Apparently having managed to regain some semblance of control, Lindsey slipped back next to Faith, throwing his arm around her shoulders and pressing a silent kiss against her cheek before making a rude gesture at the back of Mrs Gilmore's head. Suppressing her own laugh, Faith picked the auction programme out of Lindsey's lap and started flicking through it.

"One hundred and twenty thousand dollars for the Friedrich!" in the background Spike was peddling the angst-ridden painting to the crowd, if they were on the Friedrich, Faith did some quick math, then there were only two more paintings to go.

Sighing she flipped to the back cover of the programme and started reading the shtick they'd written about the wealth distribution among the school. Frowning she re-read the piece three times before she poked Lindsey in the side.

"Hey, Lawyer dude," she whispered, "does this seem right to you? Only fifty percent of the profits are going to the school."

Lindsey frowned and plucking the paper from her grasp he skimmed the writing. "That… is really weird."

"If the school only gets fifty percent," Faith mused aloud, "then where's the rest of the money going?"

"Back to the sellers." Lindsey glanced up at the row of exquisite paintings on his left and the paddles flying in the air for the latest painting on offer for stupidly low prices. "This isn't right." Shoving the programme in his pocket, Lindsey nodded toward the exit. "I'll be back in a minute."

*

"Lindsey's going out." Angel muttered to Giles as the lawyer barged past them and toward the main doors.

Giles nodded tersely and made some minute signal to Spike on the stage.

"Now we haven't got much time left, Ladies and Gents, so let's not leave these paintings unsold. We have one last piece for your biding pleasure tonight, and that's the Hopper."

Giles made another slightly more violent gesture at Spike, "I know you all love it, so I'm going to skip the sales pitch, who's going to start at a hundred thousand."

No paddles.

"Now don't be coy, you know it'll go for more than that, get in on the act now."

Five paddles hit the sky, and Spike smiled lazily.

On the front row Snyder and the mayor were still in place, probably, Angel realised gleefully, ecstatic at how much money was rolling into their bank balances, completely free of charge.

"Two hundred and fifty thousand!" Spike was calling.

Just at the edge of Angel's hearing dozens of feet clipped there way down the school hallways, while the entire room waited with bated breath to see just how much the Hopper would go home for.

"Half a million dollars!"

The external doors were swinging open.

The entire room pulled in a single breath and a man near the front stood up with his paddle. "One million." He cried out.

The doors flew open, and the audience split in two, those two enraptured with the money to turn to see who had entered, and those who were just too damned curious for their own good. Those who turned were treated to the vision of a dozen men and women in blue pouring into the hall, racing through the aisles ahead of their commander in chief.

The million-dollar man dropped back into his seat and even Spike shut up to watch their progress through the room. The mayor and Snyder were both on their feet, Snyder clearly trying very hard to suppress his rage at the interruption and the mayor, Mayor Richard Wilkins III, my dad, Angel thought fondly, spread his arms questioningly at his friend the chief-of-police.

Finally stopping in front of the pair, the chief exchanged a few pleasantries with the mayor before nodding at a cop to put on the handcuffs. "Richard Wilkins III and Dominic Snyder you are both under arrest for fraud. Do you want me to read you your rights?"

"No!" Snyder was yelling, "no! You bastards it wasn't me, it was them!" But Wilkins let himself by lead peacefully through the room amongst the completely shocked faces of his citizens. "We'll sort this out," his smile seemed to be saying, "I'll be back in a few days."

Angel closed his eyes are drew in a welcome breath of oxygen. It was odd to see his old man walk away clapped in irons. But not a bad thing. He smiled. Not a bad thing at all.

**Epilogue**

Sunnydale, California  
Three Days Before The Auction

_Faith had been pacing the streets for an hour after Buffy had stormed out, she'd tried a couple of the dives they'd hung out in those few weeks they'd first spent in Sunnydale together. She wasn't to be found in any of them and it was then, Faith supposed as Willy's turned up nothing - that Faith started to consider the truth of the matter._

Buffy had gone to find her old life.

They'd had nothing but each other for so very long, five years of running and scheming and living on the edge, Faith had never really considered, even though she knew how much Buffy missed this run down bit of nowhere, that she would ever leave Faith to try and get it back.

But if that was what she wanted. What she really needed so desperately, how could Faith ever refuse to let her have it?

Sloping off towards a payphone, Faith grabbed the receiver fed the machine her quarter, and dialled. She would make things right, even if it meant asking for help.

**Sunnydale, California  
One Day After The Auction**

In the confused crowd, buzzing with excitement about the arrests of two of the town's most prominent members it had been easy for Buffy to slip outside through the fire exit. Taking a deep breath of cool night air she leaned against the brick wall, hoping for some support against the jittery nerves running through her body. Five years, the words spun round her head. Five years she'd been running from Sunnydale, running from Mayor Richard Wilkins III and now, finally, so unexpectedly.

It was over.

She was free; she could do anything she wanted.

And she had no idea what to do next.

"Goldilocks?"

A little crowd had gathered around her, Giles, Angel, Faith, Willow and Spike were packed in the tiny alleyway. Each one offering her a hesitant smile and uncertain hope.

"You okay, love?" Spike continued, one hand lighting the cigarette that hung out the corner of his mouth as he spoke.

"Yeah." Buffy smiled, "I'm okay."

Propelling herself from the wall Buffy surged towards her friends and they crowded around wrapping her in a six person hug that giggled and danced with glee, finding her sister amongst the mass Buffy wrapped her in a bone-crunching hug.

"Thank you so much." She whispered, "I can't believe you managed to get them arrested!"

Faith smiled modestly, "couldn't see any other way of getting them out of the way. Besides," she added, "they did it to Angel, only we've got neatly forged documents to keep them there."

"Trust you to out crook the crooks."

"Only seemed fair."

Buffy hugged her sister again. "Will you stay in Sunnydale? That twenty thousand foot thing ran out when we turned twenty-one, you could stay," she smiled hesitantly, "I mean, if you wanted to."

Faith shrugged. "Maybe. I mean, I have a date, so I guess I'll hang around for that."

"A date?" Buffy giggled at the extreme improbability of what she was being told. "Who with?"

"Lindsey McDonald."

Buffy's jaw dropped.

"Now, now," Giles chided. "What have you learnt about telling people who they are allowed to go out with, Buffy?"

"It's very bad." Buffy grumbled, holding her hands up in the air. "Besides, I wasn't going to say she couldn't…"

"Good." Lindsey had snuck into the mob, and wrapping his arms around Faith's waist, pressed a kiss to her neck. "Because it's way too late."

Hush swelled over the crowd and Buffy pushed away at the deep sinking feeling filing her bones. This was it. Big karmic slap in the face. She was going to get her friends back, but only because they'd all be cracking rocks together.

Lindsey frowned. "Why is everything all quiet?"

After a while Spike nodded at the pair of them, "I could be wrong, mate, but it could be 'cos you're a copper giving a crook the once over."

"Oh." Lindsey relaxed. "I'm not a cop anymore. Besides, there aren't any warrants for your arrest. And if there were..." He shrugged, "well, that'll be easy enough to correct."

Buffy twitched, "so we're good?"

Lindsey nodded.

"Great." Angel gruffed, "now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to whisk Buffy away."

"Wha-"

Willow shoved Buffy closer to Angel, "go on, we'll all be here tomorrow."

*

Angel's whisking had involved, Buffy considered as she stretched languidly against Angel's sleeping form, a whole lot of making up for lost time. Smoothing one hand along the soft lines of Angel's chest she marvelled at his ability to sleep, too wrapped in the luxury of being allowed to be near him, with him. She pressed a kiss against his chest. To be allowed to taste him.

Soppy love songs and bad poetry flew through her mind as she rearranged the blanket around them. Above her stars bled into the lightening sky, the palest fingers of dawn poking up over the horizon. Feeling suddenly naughty, Buffy let her hands slide along the sleeping form of her loved, grinning wickedly she shifted her position so she could lean over him, seizing his slumbering lips in a full bodied kiss she let her hands slide down to less erogenous zones.

"Uhm Buffy," he whispered against her lips, eyes still closed she felt his hands slide up her body to cup her-

Cold water sloshed over every part of their form, seeping through the blanket and pouring past Buffy to splash all over Angel as well. Jumping up, Buffy pulled the sopping blanket closer around her and left Angel scrambling to wrap the ground blanket around him as he spun round in wild circles trying to find their attacker with sleep-struck eyes.

Angel was, Buffy considered, incredibly sexy when he was dripping wet. The water ran down his alabaster chest in deep rivulets that…

"Ahem."

Buffy tore her attention away and toward their intruder. Their pinched elderly old woman intruder, with a dripping bucket hanging from one wrinkled hand.

"Ahem." She repeated. "This is a respectable neighbourhood and that kind of behaviour," she pronounced every syllable of her words with painful accuracy, "is not acceptable."

Angel stared in absolute astonishment at the woman. "Yes, ma'am." He complied sheepishly.

Gathering up their clothes and hurriedly dressing in absolute silence, Angel grabbed Buffy's hand and led her away from the clearing and back to the car, opening the door for Buffy, she stepped into the car under the beady eyes of the old woman. Slipping inside himself, Angel clicked his seatbelt, revved the engine and tore away from the sidewalk, at least fifty miles an hour above the speed limit. Turning to Buffy he yelled over the roaring wind, "Where do you want to go?"

Buffy smiled and curled up against her driver. "Absolutely nowhere, ever again."

Angel smiled and slipped his arm round her shoulders. "Sounds good to me."

**The End**


End file.
